COLUMBIA, Mo. – Kansas Wesleyan placed 22nd in the NAIA Men's National Cross Country Championship on Friday.
The Coyotes compiled 502 points, one point behind Montreat and four points behind Doane. College of Idaho won the team championship with 87 points while Saint Mary had 254 points and placed sixth in the field of 36 teams.
Julian Avila was KWU's top runner finishing the 8,000-meter Gans Creek Cross Country Course in a time of 25 minutes, 4.5 seconds and placing 86th. It was a vast improvement from a year ago when he finished 263rd in 27:45.9 in the NAIA Championship at Vancouver, Washington.
Rounding out the Coyotes' scoring Friday was
Damion Jackson 111th in 25:14.9,
Austin Hess 115th in 25:14.9,
Jake Cruz 137th in 25:24.5 and
Giovanni Rios 187th in 25:41.2. Hess finished 122nd, Cruz 155th and Rios 214th at last year's national meet.
Tytus Reed was 219th in 25:59.3 and
Austin Schaeffer 223rd in 26:01.5 on Friday for KWU. A total of 326 runners finished the race.
"We would be lying if we said we weren't a bit disappointed," coach Garret Young said. "I think our men executed our race plan very well at a very high level. We maybe didn't scheme it up the absolute best for them to have success. It was a strategy that six weeks ago worked really well for teams (at Gans Creek) and we thought it would work well today."
