Road to Wisco Ends with NCAA Championships

Saturday, November 17

Madison, Wis.

TBA

Boise State

NCAA National Championships

Tickets

2018 OCT 26: The 2018 Mountain West Men's and Women's Cross Country Championship is held at Morley Field and Balboa Park in San Diego, CA. Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos

Photo by: Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos

11/15/2018 2:20:00 PM | Cross Country

Live Results Live Stream ($)NCAAs Notebook

The Boise State cross country teams will conclude their season, Saturday, on the cusp of history at the NCAA National Championships

By: Nate Lowery

BOISE, Idaho – With both the men's and women's Boise State cross country teams ranked in the top 10 and officially heading to the NCAA Championships, the Broncos are on the cusp of program history. Boise State will contend for a pair of national titles and podium finishes, Saturday in Madison, Wisc.

LOGISTICS: The Broncos will return to the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison this weekend, after putting on a dominant performance at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational, earlier this season. This will be the first time since 1978 that Wisconsin has hosted the national cross country meets, but the first for the Zimmer Championship Course – a cross country specific venue established in 2009.

Women's 6-kilometer: 9:45 a.m. MT
Men's 10-kilometer: 10:45 a.m. MT

LIVE: The NCAA will provide free live results with updates at specific splits throughout the race. FloTrack will also provide a live stream of both races for their FloPro subscribers.

LINEUP: As with the regional championships, the Broncos will be allowed to enter eight athletes on both sides for the national championships, with seven toeing the starting line.

Men- Elijah Armstrong, Riley Campbell, Addison Dehaven, Miler Haller, Jeff Lautenslager, Ahmed Muhumed, Andrew Rafla, Yusuke Uchikoshi
Women- Alexis Fuller, Claire Graves, Kyra Lopez, Clare O'Brien, Allie Ostrander, Maxine Paholek, Gracie Tostenson, Emily Venters

IN THE RANKINGS: Boise State will enter the national championships in the greatest position in program history, according to the rankings. The Bronco women's team is currently tied for third with Colorado in the USTFCCCA Coaches' Poll, while the men are ranked ninth.

OSTRANDER GAPS THE FIELD: In all of her illustrious career, Allie Ostrander put together arguably one of her most dominant performances Friday in Sacramento. The redshirt junior built a 30 meter gap on the field before hitting the first mile marker and never faltered en route to a more than 13-second victory over the West Region field. Ostrander's time of 19:09.0 was the fastest of her career, and the fastest of any woman in all of the nine regions across the nation.

The victory was also the seventh of her career, moving her into a tie with Emma Bates for the most in program history, while also earning her West Region Women's Athlete of the Year honors.

LAST TIME OUT: With an eye on qualifying both teams to the national championship for the second consecutive season, the Broncos had a phenomenal day at the West Region Championships. Ostrander led the women's team to a second-place finish with 49 points -- the lowest point total at the meet in program history -- as the Broncos were just five points behind Oregon.

Despite not securing the automatic bid, the Bronco men's team finished third with 102 points -- their best performance at the regional meet in program history. In addition, Boise State landed eight runners on the all-region team, surpassing the previous program high of five from 2017.

REGIONAL SUCCESS: Boise State is one of two women's programs in the nation to have a runner finish in the top three at the regional meet every single season between 2013-18. The Broncos were led by Emma Bates (2013-14), Brenna Peloquin (2016) and Allie Ostrander (2015, 17-18). Arkansas is the only other women's program to accomplish the feat.

CLIMBING THE PODIUM: Both the men's and women's teams have a chance to reach the podium (top four team finish) this Saturday in Wisconsin. A Boise State team, men or women has never reached the podium in program history.

Since the NCAA combined the national championship into one meet for both the men and the women in 1981, there have been 27 podium sweeps -- both the men's and women's teams from the same school reaching the podium in the same year. Villanova is the only school outside of the autonomous five conferences to achieve the feat, doing so in 1992.