OSU Gears Up for National Championships

Saturday, November 21

Louisville, KY

11 a.m.

Oklahoma State University

NCAA Championships

November 20, 2015 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

The Basics

The 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships, hosted by the University of Louisville, will begin Nov. 21 at 11 a.m. CST, with the women's 6K-championship run. The men's 10K run will follow at noon and the awards ceremony will wrap up the day at 1 p.m.

For live results, visit the University of Louisville athletics website (gocards.com). Oklahoma State's results and a full recap of the day for the Cowboys and Cowgirls will be posted on okstate.com.

Oklahoma State at the NCAA Championships

Cowboys
·         The Cowboys won Oklahoma State's last national title. They won the NCAA Cross Country Championship in 2012 to give them their third under coach Dave Smith and fourth in school history. (1954, 2009, 2010, 2012)

·         The Cowboys have qualified for the NCAA Championships for the 13th consecutive year.

·         Since 2005, the Cowboys have not finished outside of the top-10.

·         This will be the 29th time the Cowboys have run in the NCAA Cross Country Championships.

·         Since becoming the men's head coach in 2006, Dave Smith has had 23 cross country All-Americans, more than any other coach in school history.

·         Overall, the Cowboys have had 47 men's cross country All-Americans. (Craig Nowak, 2014, 16th place)

·         The Cowboys come into the Championships unbeaten after five meets, including their eighth-straight Big 12 title and fifth-straight Midwest Regional title.

·         The Cowboys have claimed six trophies for finishing in the top-four in the past 10 seasons. (Tied for most with Colorado)

·         In the latest USTFCCCA poll, the Cowboys jumped to fourth in country behind only Colorado, Syracuse and Stanford. (Those four have combined for 10 of the last 14 titles)

·         This marks the 39th-consecutive week as the No. 1 ranked team in the Midwest region. The longest regional No. 1 streak in the country.

Cowgirls
·         The Cowgirls as a team return to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2012, when they finished 26th.

·         The Cowgirls' last All-American was Monika Juodeskaite, who finished 23rd at the 2013 meet in Terre Haute, Indiana.

·         The Cowgirls' best finish at a cross country championship was fifth. It came in 1989 under coach Dick Weis.

·         The Cowgirls are unbeaten coming into the championships for the first time under coach Dave Smith.

·         For the first time in school history, OSU comes into the Cross Country Championships ranked in the USTFCCCA's top-15.

Preview
The Oklahoma State cross country program comes into the NCAA Championships with having swept the Midwest Regional just a week prior.

Despite returning only one All-American from the ninth-place Cowboys squad from a season ago, the Pokes come into the championship meet as the fourth ranked team in the nation, trailing just Colorado, Syracuse and Stanford. Including the Cowboys, those four programs have combined for 10 of the last 14 men's titles.

Craig Nowak was the highest finishing Cowboy from last year's meet. He finished 16th with a 30:40.1 at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Brian Gohlke and Cerake Geberkidane are the only other Cowboys from the 2014 squad on this year's roster. Gohlke finished 89th and Geberkidane, a freshman at the time, finished 126th.

Monika Juodeskaite was the only Cowgirl to advance to the Championships last year. This season, with Juodeskaite's eligibility used up, the 2015 Cowgirls will all be making their NCAA Championships debuts. However, the inexperience hasn't seemed to matter so far. After starting the season unranked, OSU has climbed to 11th in the most recent poll and is the No. 1 team from the Midwest Region coming into the weekend.

Having won both the Big 12 and Midwest Regional title with junior Natalie Baker and Big 12 Newcomer of the Year Ingeborg Loevnes leading the way, the Cowgirls come into the championships undefeated. Six of the seven Cowgirl runners from last week's regional earned all-region honors compared to just one last season.

Under Smith, the Cowgirls' highest finish came in 2010 when they took 17th.

The 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships begin Friday at 11 a.m. CT from Louisville, Kentucky. The women's 6K will kick off the day and the men's 10K will follow at noon. The awards ceremony for both races is scheduled for 1 p.m. A full recap can be found on okstate.com following the day's events. Follow @run4okstate on Twitter for more information.

At the 2014 NCAA Championships

Leading the way for the Oklahoma State men's squad was Craig Nowak, who earned his first-career All-America honor with a 16th-place finish at last year's race. With a top-40 performance, Nowak pushed Smith's annual tradition of producing at least one All-American to eight-consecutive years, a stretch dating back to Ryan Vail and David Chirchir's All-America efforts in 2007.

Nowak became the 46th cross country All-American in OSU history and the 23rd since 2007, a mark that leads the nation over the eight-season span.
Fabian Clarkson, Kirubel Erassa, Brian Gohlke and Cerake Geberkidane rounded out the scoring for the Cowboys, finishing in 52nd,69th, 89th and 126th, respectively.

On the women's side, Monika Juodeskaite competed as an individual qualifier for the second-consecutive season, finishing in 107th in the women's 6K competition. Juodeskaite finished her Oklahoma State cross country career as one of the most successful distance runners in school history, as the Lithuania-native finished with four All Big-12 selections, the second-fastest 6,000 meter time in school history and one All-America honor.