Montana State University
NCAA Mountain Regional Championships
NCAA Mountain Regional Up for Bobcat Cross Country
11/14/2024 10:48:00 AM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
With history on the line, Montana State makes the trek to Reno for Friday’s regional championship meet
RENO, Nev. -- Toeing the line at the toughest regional championship meet in the country, Montana State's cross country teams will look to keep their seasons alive at the NCAA Mountain Regional, hosted by the University of Nevada in Reno on Friday.
The women's six-kilometer championship race from Washoe Golf Course is set for 11 a.m. PT/12 p.m. MT, while the men's ten-kilometer race will begin at 12 p.m. PT/1 p.m. MT. Both races will be streamed on the Mountain West Network.
For the first time this season, the MSU men will be running the ten-kilometer distance that will be the same at the NCAA Championships next Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin.
The meet will feature 18 women's squads and 17 men's squads each vying for the two automatic berths to the national championship meet handed out on each side.
"Our men's and women's teams are both looking very strong heading into the Mountain Region meet," head coach Lyle Weese said. "It seems like we are really coming together at the right time and still building and looking stronger. I'm excited to see how they stack up. The Mountain Region is typically the best out of the nine regions, so we'll be up against really outstanding competition from all the schools."
Friday's field includes six top-30 men's programs in the country including No. 1 BYU, No. 6 New Mexico, and No. 8 Northern Arizona. On the women's side, five top-30 women's programs will be in action on Friday in Reno including No. 1 BYU, No. 4 Northern Arizona, No. 9 Utah, and No. 10 New Mexico.
Montana State's men, coming off back-to-back appearances at the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history, will be looking to extend the streak to three straight bids.
Montana State's men have made three appearances at the national meet in program history, with head coach Lyle Weese leading the Cats to the big stage as a student-athlete in 2002 (11th) and as the head coach in 2022 (25th) and 2023 (13th).
The Bobcats began the year ranked No. 25 in the USTFCCCA Coaches' Poll, and received votes in every national poll this fall except in the most recent edition released on November 5.
MSU, which brought back runners 2-9 from last year's 13th place team at the national meet, has dealt with injuries to star runners Owen Smith and Levi Taylor but still managed to put up solid results all season. A top-20 result at the Nuttycombe Invite in Wisconsin in September, a fourth place finish at the Dellinger Invite in Oregon in October, and their fourth straight runner-up finish at the Big Sky Championships in November set the stage for what could be an eventful Friday in Reno.
"To perform well at a meet like this, you do have to have people up towards the front," Weese said. "We're hopeful that we have multiple guys in the top-25. If we can have two, three, four people up in the top-25 or at least close to that, that would obviously be a really good position for us. The field is pretty interesting at this meet where it's not gigantic. There aren't a huge number of teams, but everyone is really good—so it tends to be a pretty large front quarter of the pack, and then sometimes it gets pretty spread out."
Montana State's men will most likely need a top-six finish on Friday coupled with a few more things to break their way in order to strengthen their at-large candidacy for a bid to the NCAA Championships on November 23. The men are currently ranked ninth in the Week Five USTFCCCA Mountain Region Rankings. The Cats' fifth place finish last season at the regional meet in Lubbock, Texas, is what solidified their second straight trip to the NCAA Championships.
"The scoring with cross country is so unique because you're dependent on how so many other teams compete," Weese said. "There are a lot of things that are out of our control, but the one thing we can control is going out and running the best that we can."
Montana State's women are ranked 12th in the Week Five USTFCCCA Mountain Region Rankings entering Friday's meet in Reno, looking to build on last season's 11th place finish at the NCAA Mountain Regional in Lubbock.
That result was the best for the Bobcat women since 2017, and capped a stellar year that saw the Cats finish second at the Big Sky Championships—also a first since 2017.
Just like last year, Montana State will enter the NCAA Mountain Regional on Friday as the Big Sky runners-up, looking to pull an upset.
The Cats scored just 54 points in Pocatello at the conference meet, going 7-9-10-13-15 for their lowest point total at the Big Sky Championships since 1995.
"There are four women's teams in the top-10 nationally at this meet, so I think whenever you're going up against top teams like that, there's always a little bit of intimidation," Weese admitted. "The good thing about our women's team this year is we've run in some meets with some outstanding teams, and they have run the best that they can. When we went to Oregon and when we went to the Big Sky Championships, both of those meets they went out and competed really well. If we can go out and run our best race across the board, that will end up putting us in a really good position."
No. 1 BYU is the favorite, with Big Sky champion No. 4 Northern Arizona and other top ten teams in No. 9 Utah and No. 10 New Mexico also challenging for the top spot.
Kyla Christopher-Moody is coming off a seventh-place finish at the Big Sky meet, with Bozeman native Grace Gilbreth not far behind in tenth. Both earned All-Big Sky honors for the second straight season.
Other experienced runners including Belt native Lindsey Paulson (11th), Bozeman's Alex Moore (14th), and Kalispell's Hannah Perrin (26th) also ran well.
Sophomore Annie Kaul, a product of Plentywood, finished 16th in Pocatello.
Montana State's runner-up finish at the conference meet marked the second straight season the Cats placed in the top-two, a first for the program since 1994-1995.
On both the men's and women's sides, the top two teams automatically qualify from each of the nine regions, for a total of 18 teams. Thirteen additional teams will be selected at-large to comprise the 31-team field. Thirty-eight individuals will be selected to participate in each championship through an automatic qualifier and at-large selection process. The first four regional finishers not from an automatic qualifying or at-large team also secure an auto-bid to the championships.
The 2024 Division I men's and women's cross country selection show will air on Saturday, Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. MT live on NCAA.com.
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