UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash.  The Western Colorado men's and women's cross country programs on Friday earned three All-American honors while racing to an eighth-place finish in the women's 6-kilometer race and an 11th-place men's 10K finish at the NCAA 2022 Division II Cross Country Championship.

Simon Kelati, Allison Beasley and Katie Doucette ran to All-American results for Western. Kelati was 12th in the men's event with a final time of 30 minutes, 8.8 seconds., and in the women's race it was Beasley (19th, 21:07.3) and Doucette (37th, 21:19.8) picking up All-American honors for the second consecutive year.

JUST THE FACTS
Event: NCAA D-II Cross Country Championship
Location: Chambers Creek Regional Park, University Place, Wash.
Top 3 teams, men: 1 – Colorado School of Mines (43 points), 2 – Wingate College (177), 3 – Colorado Christian University (191)
Top 3 teams, women: 1 – Adams State (75 points), 2 – Grand Valley State (126), 3 – Colorado Mines (164)

HOW IT HAPPENED

• The Mountaineer men were as high as sixth place on the team scoreboard, reaching that high point at the 3K mark of the 10K race. With just 1,000 meters to go they had slipped to 12th before moving up one spot over those final meters.
• Kelati clearly had a plan for the race, crossing the early 2K mark in 36th place, then climbing to 21st at the 4.6K mark. By the 4-mile mark he had risen all the way to 9th overall.
• He battled with a small group over the back half of the race, as four to five runners moved between eighth and 12th place. At the finish Kelati finished a half-stride behind the 11th-place runner, but easily within the top 40 to earn his first All-American distinction.
• Only 28 seconds behind Kelati was teammate Jacob Hernandez, who was 44th in a time of 30:36.1.
• The final three scoring runners for the Mountaineers were separated by just 21 seconds. Will Johnson (31:18.7) was 105th, Michael Grabowski (31:28.4) was 116th, and Albert Hesse (31:39.6) was 129th.
• Western's other two runners, Juan Diaz (32:00.3) and Ryan Outler (32:27.3) finished 158th and 196th, respectively.
• The Mountaineer women's spot on the team scoreboard ran steady from as early as the 1-mile mark, where they were eighth overall. They briefly moved up one spot at the 2.4 mark, then put a stranglehold on eighth from there to the finish.
• Beasley opened with a controlled pace, slotting in at 33rd over the initial 600 meters of the race. She moved up to 16th at the mile mark and held on to 17th place over the next two time marks. Late in the race she was 21st with just 800 meters remaining but closed by passing two runners to finish 19th.
• Doucette was more guarded with her pace in the early going, slipping into 89th after 600 meters and passing through the mile mark in 79th and the 2.4K mark in 68th. She made a big push then, improving to 46th by the 2-mile mark before climbing nine more spots over the final half of the race – including five places over the final 1,000 meters -- to cross in 37th place overall, only 12 seconds back from Beasley.
• Just like with the Western men's final three scoring runners, the final three Mountaineer women scorers were tightly packed at the finish. Leah Taylor (78th, 21:48.3), Emma Kjellsen (99th, 22:03.9) and Gretchen Slattum (103rd, 22:05.3) ended the afternoon just 17 seconds apart.
• The two non-scoring runners for Western, racing in their first national meet, were Emma Berg (165th, 22:49.6) and Dulce Carlos (241st, 24:18.6).

CHAMPIONSHIP NOTES

• The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference was well represented at the meet. Including national champion Colorado Mines, four men's teams from the league were in the top 13 of the final standings, and national champion Adams State led six conference teams into the top 10 of the women's results.
• Individual champions were also from the RMAC. Dillon Powell (28:28.0) of Colorado Mines ran to the men's crown and Stephanie Cotter (19:52.2) of Adams State won the women's race.
• The 134-point gap in the men's event between Mines and runner-up Wingate was the largest between first and second since 1963.
• The women's title was Adams' third in a row. It was also the program's 20th title making the Grizzlies the winningest women's cross country program of all NCAA divisions.
• The Mountaineer cross country programs participated in their 29th national championship races with the 2022 event. The women added another top-10 finish to increase their total to 28 across their national history.