LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- The league's 14 cross country teams are preparing for this weekend's SCAC Men's and Women's Cross Country Championship, which is being hosted by Trinity University and is being run at Live Oak City Park in Live Oak City, Texas - just outside of San Antonio. Official Championship Website
The races will be held on Saturday, October 30 with the men's 8K race scheduled to start at 8:30 am CT and the women 6K to follow at 9:30 am CT.
The Colorado College men and the Trinity University women are the defending champions of the event, which was held this past February for the first time in league history due to COVID restrictions forcing the cancellation of all fall competition in 2020.
Josh Fry, who returns to lead the Tigers, paced five Colorado College runners who finished in the top 10 a year ago and the Tiger men defended their cross country conference crown on the campus of the University of Dallas. 2020-21 Men's Meet Results
Fry, who notched his third consecutive All-SCAC finish, crossed the line in 26:35.60 to earn SCAC Runner of the Year honors, continuing the program's dominance at posting the event's top medalist as 12 of the last 15 individual winners have come from Colorado College.
Fry was one of six Colorado College men who took All-SCAC honors last year and head coach Alex Nichols returns five of those harriers as the program seeks its third consecutive team title. Sophomore James Settles, who earned SCAC Newcomer of the Year honors at last year's meet, is back as are junior Max Saliman, senior Sam Rodriguez and junior Will Foster.
Other runners to watch on the men's side include junior Ben Whittemore, sophomore Ryan Rager-Aguiar, senior Chad Conway and sophomore Joseph Hermes of Trinity and junior Noah Dennis of Southwestern, who each posted all-SCAC finishes at last year's meet. Whittemore finished as a runner-up to Fry for medalist honors, just a half second behind the winner.
Additionally, the Colorado College senior duo of Paul Olsen and Andrew West are back on the roster after missing last year's race as is Trinity's senior Joshua Morgan. All three earned all-SCAC honors in 2019.
On the women's side, led by five runners in the top 10 including the top three, Trinity University won its third SCAC women's cross-country title in the last four years on the campus of the University of Dallas. 2020-21 Women's Meet Results
In the tightest margin of victory since 2016 and the sixth tightest overall in the 30-year history of SCAC cross country, Trinity edged Colorado College by just five points, 25-30. Head coach Emily Daum will be without defending Runner-of-the-Year Jordan Juran, who ran the ninth fastest 6K championship time in league history at last year's meet (21:48.1) prior to graduating this past spring, but the cupboard is far from bare as six other Tigers who earned All-SCAC honors a year ago are back, including SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year, super senior Abby Blackwood who finished second at last year's meet.
Rounding out the TU Tigers all-conference returners are sophomore Ellie Catron, junior Paige Tangney, junior Lynzie Kutsner, sophomore Madison Habeck and junior Anna King.
Other potential contenders in this year's race include Colorado College's quintuplet of all-SCAC finishers from a year ago: senior Emily Dwyer, senior Alexia Preston, junior Kendall Accetta, junior Claire Quinn and junior Lily Brazil. A pair of senior runners who missed last year's race also return, including Megan Koch of Colorado College who earned all-SCAC honors in 2019 and University of Dallas' Anna Wilgenbusch who was the medalist of the 2019 race and went on to earn all-America honors at the national meet later that fall.
For more information on the 2021 SCAC Men's and Women's Cross Country Championship, click here for the official website.
