Seniors Aaron Braun (left), Reuben Mwei (center) and individual champion Brian Medigovich (right) crossed the line together in a 1-2-3 sweep at the Central Regional Championships. Photo courtesy Bob Berry, Wayne State Sports Information.Grizzlies men looking to cap season with repeat national title
November 19, 2009EVANSVILLE, Ind.— The Adams State College men’s cross country team hopes to cap what has been an amazing season Saturday as the Grizzlies compete in the 2009 NCAA Division II National Championships here on the University of Southern Indian Cross Country Course.
The 10-kilometer race will begin at 1 p.m. CST following the women’s race at noon.
The Grizzlies, who are the defending national champions, have been ranked first in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association rankings and are in search of a seventh NCAA Division II and 19th overall national title.
As the winnings cross country program at all levels of collegiate running in their history, the Grizzlies are absolutely loaded this year and are led by seniors Aaron Braun (Fort Collins, Colo.), Brian Medigovich (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) and Reuben Mwei (Kapsabet, Kenya), who have a combined 27 career USTFCCCA All-America honors between them in both cross country and track.
They all crossed the finish line together as they went 1-2-3 at the Central Regional Championships in Wayne, Neb., which ASC won by 27 points over No. 2 ranked Western State.
Braun, a 12-time overall All-American and a 4-time national champion on the track, has finished second at each of the last two national championships in Joplin, Mo. (2007) And Slippery Rock, Pa. (2008) and is now looking to take another step up the ladder. He also finished 23rd as a redshirt freshman in 2006 and claimed the 2007 and 2008 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference individual titles and Runner of the Year honors before finishing just behind Mwei at the RMAC Championships on Oct. 24 in Denver.
Medigovich, who took the de-facto individual victory at the regional, his first career cross country win, is a 9-time All-American but has never won an individual national title. He finished third at the RMAC Championships but was the Grizzlies top finisher and second overall at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree in early October. He took fifth at last year’s national cross country championships and finished second in the 10,000 meters and third in the 5,000 meters at the outdoor track and field championships held in May in San Angelo, Texas. He also finished ninth at the 2007 national cross country meet and 22nd in 2006.
Mwei, a 6-time All-American, enters the meet as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and USTFCCCA Central Regional Runner of the Year. He also won his first career national title during the 2009 outdoor track and field season in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and has been in tremendous form for most of the last 12 months after having to miss out of last year’s team championship effort because of a non-running related injury that forced him to sit out.
Junior Ryan McNiff (Los Alamos, N.M.) has also been solid throughout the year, usually as Coach Damon Martin’s No. 4 man. Finishing 16th overall as the Grizzlies’ third man at last year’s national championships, McNiff, a 5-time All-American, took sixth at the RMAC Championships and fifth at the regional earning All-RMAC and USTFCCA all-region accolades. He finished 22nd as the Grizzlies’ No. 4 man at the 2007 NCAA Division II National Championships as a redshirt freshman.
Although the aforementioned numbers and accomplishments are impressive, it is the Grizzlies’ overall depth that has impressed the Division II cross country world the most this year.
The team is so deep that three other Grizzly runners that finished in the top 13 at the Central Regional are not even in Martin’s probable 7-man lineup for the national meet. That is because three other runners— senior Luke Cragg (Leeds, England), junior newcomer Anthony Gauthier (Orleans, France) and sophomore transfer Nathan Sellers (La Crescenta, Calif.) ran even faster times earlier in the day during an intrasquad time trial on the same Wayne Country Club course, the major determining factor that Martin used to select his lineup for Saturday.
RMAC Freshman of the Year Edwin Cruz (Del Norte, Colo.), who finished ninth the regional as ASC’s fifth man, however is with the team and is Martin’s alternate should anything unfortunate happen during the team’s travel and final race preparations.
The three new runners, who are replacing Cruz, Florian Theophile (Selommes, France) and Brandon Birdsong (Lubbock, Texas), all of which earned all-region honors, are very accomplished in their own right.
Cragg delivered in a big way at last year’s national championships finishing as the Grizzlies’ No. 4 man, taking 24th overall en-route to All-America honors. He was a late replacement for Mwei then after not making the 2008 RMAC or Central Regional Championship lineups. This year, Cragg is been right in the thick of the friendly intrasquad battle for a spot on championship teams and finished 10th overall at the RMAC Championships earning second team honors. He was the Grizzlies’ seventh runner at that meet and had been the team’s No. 5 man while taking 23rd at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree.
Sellers has come on as of late finishing as ASC’s No. 12 man at the Oklahoma State meet and then sixth in the RMAC Championship open race before earning a spot on the National Championship team with his time-trial effort in Nebraska.
Gauthier, also been a major player in the battle to get on the team and finished ninth at the RMAC Championships while earning second team honors. Despite being the Grizzlies’ sixth man in the loaded lineup that day, his effort was still not good enough to earn a spot on the regional as Martin used comparative times from the RMAC Championship open race to determining the regional lineup.
However, Gauthier has moved back into the 7-man lineup thanks to his time trial.
The Grizzlies’ toughest competition will likely come from arch-rival Western State, which won the team title in 2004, the last time the meet was hosted by Sothern Indiana. The Mountaineers currently hold the NCAA Division II record of seven team titles, a mark that the Grizzlies are hoping to equal.
Although the Grizzlies defeated the Mountaineers by identical 20-47, 27-point margins at the RMAC and Central Regional Championships, Martin will certainly remind them that results have been known to change between the regional and national championships in the rivalry and that Saturday’s race is the one that people will remember the results of the most.
The Mountaineers will also be sure to remember 2004 and last year when ASC came out on top of a 67-88 battle with Western State and the rest of the 2008 National Championship field as the Grizzlies dethroned 2006 and 2007 team champion Abilene Christian (Texas), which finished fourth a year ago before failing to make this year’s meet as a team after finishing a distant 10th in the South Central Regional that the Wildcats hosted.
Grand Valley State (Mich.), which finished fifth at last year’s national championships, could also play a role in the championship race and enters the meet ranked third in the USTFCCCA rankings. Chico State took third a year ago and is now ranked fourth. That Wildcat squad was paced by 2008 individual champion Scott Bauhs, who turned professional right after the meet.
Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rival Colorado Mines is also a dark horse contender and enters the championship ranked fifth in the nation after finishing third in both the RMAC and Central Regional Championships.
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