Kathy Graham led Ranger College to the women’s team title at the 2020 NJCAA Division I Cross Country Championships this past weekend in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The Lady Rangers, who won their first national title in program history by one point, used a true team effort as they had four runners in the top-20 and posted the second smallest spread between their first and fifth scorers. Ranger College entered the national meet ranked eighth nationally. The Lady Rangers also fared well at several other meets, which included a victory at its own William Graham Ranger College Invitational in early October.
NEW ORLEANS – There are less than two weeks remaining until the rescheduled
2020 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on March 15 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Remember that you can watch all of the action LIVE on ESPN U & the ESPN App beginning at 12:30 pm ET.
With that said, we couldn’t think of a better time to reveal the final
NCAA Division I Men’s Cross Country Regional Rankings for the 2020 season.
Great Lakes Region
There was only one change to the order of top-5 teams in the Great Lakes Region.
Wisconsin remained No. 1, followed by No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Michigan and No. 4 Indiana. Michigan State jumped two spots to No. 5, switching places with now No. 7 Butler.
No. 1
Illinois, No. 3
Iowa State and No. 5
Tulsa. The Cowboys recently earned a 18-37 win over the Hurricane at the OSU Winter Open.
Mountain Region
The new No. 1 is
New Mexico. The Lobos opened up their season at the Battle Born Collegiate Challenge with 60-85 victory over Stanford.
Adva Cohen paced New Mexico with her sixth place finish, with the remaining four scorers finishing 10-12-15-17.
BYU fell to No. 2 with the jump by New Mexico. The Cougars won the team title at the West Coast Conference with 28 points. BYU placed it’s five scoring runners in the top-11, led by a 2-3 finish by
Charlie Robertson, Sr., Franklin
Robertson improved from seventh at state as a sophomore to finish second last season behind teammate Aidan Palmer (now at Boise State). The Colorado signee and 2019 3,000-meter champion on the track won the final Elite 5K race at Hydrangea Ranch in Tillamook in November, beating Wyoming 3A state champion Peter Visser of Star Valley by eight seconds.
Ryan Schumacher, Sr., Jesuit
Schumacher, who signed with Notre Dame in the fall, moved up 25 spots between his sophomore and junior years to place fourth at the state cross country championships last season. He traveled to Indiana in November and placed 12th at the XC Town USA Meet of Champions.
Big 10 XC champ Bethany Hasz is crushing it this year during Covid-19
By David Monti, @d9monti
(18-Feb) With quiet determination and classic Midwestern grit, Bethany Hasz of the University of Minnesota has methodically climbed through the ranks of distance runners in the NCAA’s Big Ten Conference to reach its top echelon this year. The 23 year-old from Alexandria, Minn., who on January 30, won the individual Big Ten cross country title, is one of only six NCAA women to break nine minutes for 3000m this indoor season, and one of just ten to break 16 minutes for 5000m. Now preparing for her conference indoor championships at the end of February, she is undefeated in four winter race appearances, three on the indoor oval and one on the turf. Hasz, whose twin sister Megan also competes for Minnesota, isn’t getting ahead of herself.