NAIA National Meet (11/21/2009)
11/21/2009
Concordia University - Oregon - Vancouver, WA -- Fort Vancouver Historical Site
VANCOUVER, Wash. - With their #17 national ranking, some say is too high, the Olivet Nazarene University men’s cross country team, two weeks from defending their CCAC title for the fourth straight year, traveled to the far west to compete in the NAIA National Championships. The 8K race was held Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Wash on Saturday, November 21st. The Tigers competed among the top 32 teams from across the nation, representing the NAIA's best. With that said, the Tigers came in 11th, their best finish ever as a program. The purple and gold had two runners finish in the top 35 overall and just missed having four in the top 100.
The Tigers were led by a familiar face, junior Kenny MacDonough (Novi, Mich.) ended up finishing with a time of 25:42 and in 20th place. Senior Drew Collette (Lake Orion, Mich.) finished 34th overall with a time of 25:57. Freshman Kasey Ferrigan (Dixon, Ill.) ran a 26:45, good for 132nd overall, sophomore Justin Jones (Oakwood, Ill.) finished 133rd at 26:46 and senior Andrew Clausen (Wheaton, Ill.) finished 150th with a time of 26:56. Freshman Kyle Boone (Dixon, Ill.) finished with a time of 27:37 and sophomore Thomas Powers (Security, Colo.) finished with a time of 28:09 despite running 4 and a half miles with only one spike due to losing one of his shoes in deep mud.
The team took 11th place while missing out on 10th place by only 2 points and they missed out on 8th place by 13 points. While this may be looked at as a disappointment - Everyone was really upbeat about the days effort. The Tigers look to reload for the 2010 season and go after a top 10 finish - the first ever for the program. The Tigers outcome today concludes their eight race season. ONU will graduate nine seniors, but return 13 strong runners for the 2010 campaign.