Colorado College's Settles Wins NCAA Regional Title to Highlight SCAC Performances

Colorado College's Settles Wins NCAA Regional Title to Highlight SCAC Performances

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Colorado College’s James Settles, the league's two-time Runner-of-the-Year, won the 2023 NCAA Division III West Regional meet Saturday morning to lead all SCAC runners. Complete Results

Settles' performance paced the CC men, who led all SCAC squads with a fourth-place finish in a field represented by 23 different teams and 171 runners. The senior traversed the 8K course in a time of 24:23.0. It marked the best finish from a CC Tiger runner at the NCAA Regional meeting since Jackson Brainerd won his third-straight regional in 2011. His performance has tentatively qualified him for next week’s NCAA Division III Championship.

Pomona-Pitzer claimed the Div. III West Regional for the sixth consecutive year and earned the automatic berth into next weekend’s NCAA championship meet with a team score of 36.

As a team, Colorado College posted its second-straight top five finish, placing fourth with a team total of 112 points. CC placed three runners inside the top 35 to earn All-Region honors. After Settles’ championship performance, senior Delvin Swanson improved 16 places from his performance last year and finished fifth in a time of 24:48.1. SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year Will Shuflit rounded out the All-Region Tigers, finishing 30th in his NCAA Regional debut with a time of 25:33.5.  

Trinity University finished ninth place with a score of 233, marking the program’s second-straight top-10 finish at regionals. The TU Tigers were led once again by junior runner Will Salony who earned All-Region honors for the second-consecutive year. Salony improved eight spots from last year’s performance to finish ninth in a time of 25:00.1. Rounding out the top three Trinity Tigers was senior Diego Flores and graduate student Ben Whittemore. Flores finished 44th in a time of 25:55.4 and Whittemore claimed 59th crossing the line in 26:19.3. 

Southwestern University claimed its second-straight 18th-place NCAA Regional finish with 500 total team points. The Pirates were led by senior Brian Armijo who finished 84th with a time of 26:47.6.

University of St. Thomas rounded out the SCAC team performances with 570 total points to finish 21st. The Celts were led by junior Jhancarlos Carpio for the second-straight year after he crossed the line in 26:33.0 to finish 68th.

Texas Lutheran University did not have enough runners to score but was led by sophomore Lucas Falcon who finished 121st in a time of 27:29.4.

The 2023 DIII men's cross country selections will be released on Sunday, Nov. 12 on NCAA.com.

A total of 32 teams will be selected for the championships. 10 on each side will automatically qualify (one per region, from regional championships) while the remaining 22 for each of the men's and women's championships will be picked at large.

The championship race will be at Big Spring High School in Newville, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Nov. 18. It will be streamed live on NCAA.com beginning at 11 a.m. ET.

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