It was a big day in the world of NAIA cross country as the top teams and athletes traveled to Kenosha, WI to put all their talent and hard work to the test.

It was a brisk morning which kicked off with the mens race at 10:35 this morning. Malone came in as the favorites, and there were no Pioneer fans coming home disappointed. These Malone fans came out and endured the Wisconsin cold with no shirts and body paint to cheer their team to the victory. After the race, the only thing to discuss was who came in 2nd. The team has battled together all year and capped the season with 5 individual All-Americans placing 2, 4, 9, 20, and 24 for a team score of 59. After the race i got a chance to talk to Malone's top finisher Ryan Kienzle, and then again with the rest of his team.

Commanding the top spot in the mens race was Aron Rono from Azusa Pacific with a time of 23:52. He took the race out quick building a 75+ meter lead over the first 1.5 miles and never had to look back. Noah Too from MidAmerica Nazarene held the #2 spot for the majority of the race, but the surge put on by Ryan Kienzle over the last mile was enough to make Too settle for 3rd. The Black Hills team out of South Dakota held a final rating in the 5th spot, and seemed a bit silent in NAIA the NAIA title discussions. This did not slow them down. They put 3 guys in the top 20 and finished up 202 team points which was good enough to beat out Lindenwood (210) and Simon Fraser (228) for the #2 spot. The team and individual results from the meet for the men can be found by clicking this link.

Next up on the agenda was the championship race for the women. Despite losing some of the NAIA's top runners from their team last year, Simon Fraser was rated #1 and came in looking to build on their amazing 4 straight national team titles. And thats exactly what happened. Putting 3 runners in the top 13, with their 5th at 43rd was simply more than the other teams could handle today. Their team score of 99 left Cedarville (145) settling 1 spot off the pace for a 2nd consecutive year. Milligan and Malone landed 3 and 4 with teams scores of 163 and 164 respectively. Despite all the great races run by so many athletes, the duo from Azusa Pacific stole the show in the individual race. After a half mile of racing the lead pack was quickly whittled down to 5 and but the time they got to the mile mark, there were only 2. And thats how things would remain. Jaime Canterbury and Jacky Kipwambok took turns taking the lead throughout the race and it was Jamie who came with a big finish to win the individual title in a time of 17:10. Results for the womens race can be found by clicking this link.

It was a good day for some running and I am glad I was able to get to be a part of it. There were many very talented athletes and teams in competition today, and we will all look forward to see all of them competing again in a few months. Also, all of my interviews and race footage from the race today can easily be found by searching this tag naia-xc-champs-2007, and if there is anyone else who got any pictures or coverage of the race, we would love to have you upload them to the site so we can work together in putting a collection for the NAIA athletes (just add the tag naia-xc-champs-2007 to your video, photos, blogs, news etc to automatically link it to this event!).

Stay classy NAIA,

Mark