The curtain fell on the Mike Smith Era for the NAU cross country program on Saturday in Madison, Wisc., as the Lumberjack women finished fourth, making the podium for the second straight year, and the men performed better than expected to finish fifth.
Without question, though, the NCAA Division I championships on a chilly midwest morning belonged to BYU, as the Cougars women and men’s teams easily won the team titles
For the NAU women, ranked No.1 in the nation in the preseason and third coming into the finals, it was a somewhat disappointing ending. NAU struggled with injuries part of the season, but looked to be in good position to contend at the halfway point on Saturday, before fading.
The Lumberjacks attacked early. They led the 6K race at the halfway point by 19 points over BYU, which defeated NAU last week in the Mountain Regionals.
At 3K, senior Elise Stearns sat in 23rd place and was moving up on the field, closely followed by senior Ali Upshaw in 36th. Things were looking up for the NAU women, because Maggi Congdon was in 43rd place halfway and was looking strong after a poor race in the regionals. So, too, with the Lumberjacks’ fourth and fifth scorers, Keira Moore and Alex Carlson.
From there, though, it was a long, slow decline for NAU, which still had a slim lead at 4K but fell into a tie for second with West Virginia as BYU took charge in the latter stages of the race. Upshaw made a surge in the fourth kilometer, gaining 11 places to move up to 25, but Stearns dropped 15 places.
By 5K, NAU’s title hopes faded. Stearns rallied and picked up two places after her drop off, but Congdon hit a wall. She dropped 22 spots between 4K and 5K and lost another 13 spots in the final stretch to finish 71st.
Upshaw, however, proved to be NAU’s most consistent and durable runner all season. She never let up and finished 22nd (17th in team scoring). Stearns recovered well after her mid-race dip and rallied to finish 36th. A strong effort was put in by sophomore Keira Moore, who ran a smart race and stayed with the pack through before being passed in the stretch to finish 60th, third on the team.
After Congdon, NAU’s fifth runner was senior transfer Alex Carlson in 84th. The sixth runner was junior Nikita Moore, 95th, and two spots back was sophomore Karrie Baloga, who had been strong early in the season but continued to struggle Saturday after a poor race at the mountain regionals. Baloga lost 33 places in the final kilometer,
Smith had said after last week’s regionals that NAU’s fourth through seventh runners needed to step up and improve, but that didn’t happen Saturday.
It also didn’t help matters for the women that senior Alyson Churchill didn’t race. Churchill, a transfer who was an All-American at Florida State last season, hadn’t run since Pre-Nationals because of what Smith termed as a “non-running medical issue.”
Despite the late-race collapse, NAU’s women made the podium for the second straight season, after finishing second in 2023. West Virginia and Providence, two underdogs, beat out the Lumberjacks for second and third, respectively, though NAU held off west regional champion Oregon, which placed sixth.
NAU’s tactics in the men’s race, a 10K, was exactly the opposite. The Lumberjacks went out conservatively and made a strong push at the end. NAU gained 21 places in the final kilometer, thanks in no small part to senior transfer David Mullarkey, who gained 10 spots from 8K to the finish.
Mullarkey put together a strong season for NAU, finishing as the team’s top runner in severy meet in which he participated.
Seniors Santiago Prosser and Corey Gorgas also ended their NAU career strongly. Prosser was the Lumberjacks’ second runner, this time hanging on for 38th place. Gorgas closed strongly for 60th — picking off 21 runners in the final kilometer. Colin Sahlman (67th) was six seconds behind Gorgas as NAU’s fourth scorer, followed by sophomore Justin Keyes (86th).
All told, it was not the day NAU hoped for the final races under Smith, who will be leaving this spring to start a Nike professional group based in Flagstaff.
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