Cross Country | 11/4/2011 9:15:00 AM
Meet Information Sheet (PDF)
McPherson, Kan. - McPherson’s Wall and Oak Parks will be the site of the 2011 KCAC cross country championship on Saturday, November 5. The women’s 5-kilometer race will begin at 10:30 a.m. with the men’s 8-kilometer race is scheduled to follow at 11:00 a.m.
The winning team in each division will be the KCAC’s automatic team qualifier for the NAIA National Championships to be held Nov. 19 at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Vancouver, Washington. The top five individual finishers in each division not on the qualifying team and finishing in the top 15 of the conference meet will also qualify for the national championships.
The winners of both divisions at last season’s KCAC championships return to defend their individual titles.
Jordan Arnold, Friends University senior, will defend the KCAC women’s title she won last year in Salina with time of 18:16.38. Undefeated this fall, Arnold has won the Friends Wild Wind Festival, Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree college division, Fort Hays Invitational, and St. Louis Fall Classic while leading the Falcons to a #5 national NAIA ranking. Selected the KCAC cross country Runner of the Week three times this fall, she won KCAC track titles at both 5,000 and 10,000 meters last spring.
Other top ten finishers from 2010 include: 4. Cecilia Burley (KWU, now Friends); 6. Karissa Cominator (Friends); 10. Brielle Lund (Tabor).
Javier Ceja won the KCAC individual title last season for McPherson College in a time of 24:56.18, but transferred this fall and will be competing this fall as a senior for Friends University. Ceja was the Falcon’s top finisher at Oklahoma State, where Friends competed in the University Division, and the Friends Wild Wind Festival season opener and has helped lead the Falcons to a #6 ranking in the latest NAIA national poll. The KCAC Runner of the Week following his OSU Jamboree performance, Ceja was the KCAC 5,000-meter champion and finished second in the 1,500 meters as a McPherson Bulldog at the 2011 conference track & field championships.
Other top ten men finishers from 2010 include: 2. Cameron Sprague (Friends); 6. Colton McNinch (Southwestern); 8. Carrington Crum (Southwestern); 9. Frank Adelman (Southwestern); 10. Jacob McMillian (Ottawa).
Preseason polls by the conference coaches ranked Southwestern College as the early favorite in both divisions with Friends ranked second in both polls.
Ranked #16 in the latest NAIA national poll, Southwestern’s men will enter the 2011 conference meet as the defending champion, having won 31 straight KCAC titles, from 1980 through 2010. During that 31-year streak the Moundbuilders have also won all but three individual titles. Bethany College was the last non-Southwestern team to win a KCAC title, having taken home the team title in 1979.
Kansas Wesleyan is the two-time defending women’s team champions. Unlike the men, the last 11 women’s team titles have been distributed among four schools (Friends, Southwestern, Ottawa, Kansas Wesleyan) with Southwestern winning five and KWU three while the Builders and Coyotes shared the 2006 title.
While the preseason polls had Southwestern as the teams to beat, the individual times run this fall point to Friends as the pre-meet favorite in both team races.
Friends’ women have posted six of the top eight times run by KCAC ladies this fall, led by Jordan Arnold’s conference and season best 17:42.3, run at Fort Hays. Arnold has four of the top seven best individual 5k times, a streak broken up only by teammates Cecelia Burley, Kaitlyn Belisle, and Karissa Cominator.
With Southwestern chasing Friends for the team title, the women’s team race for third place should be tight among Ottawa, Bethel, McPherson, and Tabor.
Southwestern’s Frank Adelman has posted the men’s best time with his 24:39.69 run at the Southwestern NAIA Mid-States Classic followed by Friends’ Matt Ditzler (24:41.9) and Javier Ceja (24:53.3). Only Colton McNinch (Southwestern) and Joel Allen (Tabor) join Adelman in breaking up Friends’ top five among the conference’s top eight individual times.
Like the women’s race, the men’s team title appears to be a Friends-Southwestern duel as those two teams have 15 of the top 20 individual men’s times. Tabor, picked fifth in the men’s preseason polls, appears to have a slight edge for third in team race with the University of Saint Mary, Ottawa, Bethany, and Sterling battling for the remaining first division spots.
The start and finish lines for both races will be in the area north of Avenue A, at the southeast corner of the Wall Park Lake. Car and bus parking for the meet is only a short walk from the start/finish area, located on the east side of the baseball/softball complex, off of south Maxwell Street, or along Park Street on the north and west perimeter of Wall Park.
The championship course is relatively flat, mostly grass with a couple of long, gentle hills. While there are a couple of sidewalk crossings, the major bridges on the course will have rubber matting allowing for the spikes to be worn.
The women’s 5-kilometer race will consist of one 1,000-meter loop around the baseball/softball diamonds and back to the start-finish area, then two 2,000-meters loops which will be approximately three-fourths of the way around the ball field complex before turning north into Oak Park, then returning south along Turkey Creek and running the north, west, and south perimeter of Wall Park back into and through the start-finish area.
The men’s 8-kilometer course will be four loops of the 2,000-meter course described above.
The women’s 5k course record is 18:52.3 by Tenley Determan (unattached) while the men’s 8k course record is 25:38.1 by Edward Limo (Colby Community College). Both marks were set at the 2011 McPherson College Lakeside Shootout.
