On Saturday morning in San Diego, Cal., two champions will be crowned the king and queen of XC. The favorites, Grant Fisher and Anna Rohrer, have a lot in common. Both are undefeated on the grass this fall. Both are from the midwest, and both won their respective Foot Locker Midwest Region races. Both have less high school racing experiences than most elite athletes, but for different reasons. Fisher is a former soccer player who played for his high school in Grand Blanc, Mich., and always split time between soccer and running. Rohrer had suffered two big foot injuries that have sidelined her for different seasons. However, 2014 seems to be their year.

Oh yeah, both have also won a Footlocker XC Championship before.

Grant Fisher will try to win his second consecutive FL Championship this weekend. After bursting onto the scene in 2013, Fisher went head-to-head with Colorado commit John Dressel in the final stretch of the race to secure his first national XC title. The then-junior then picked up huge victories in the adidas Dream Mile (4:02.02) and the stacked Brooks PR 2 mile (8:51.28). He concluded his season with a 1500m PR of 3:49.62 at the IAAF World Junior Championships to finish 20th, his lowest placing in any race since he finished 20th in the 2012 Foot Locker Midwest Regional when he was a sophomore. After giving up soccer, a sport he excelled in so much so that he skipped the Michigan State XC Championships his sophomore season to play in the state soccer finals, Fisher has devoted himself to running and will continue his talents at Stanford next fall. If he wins in San Diego, the victory would put him in the record books with other back-to-back winners like Dathan Ritzenhein (1999, 2000), Lukas Verzbicas (2009, 2010), and Edward Cheserek (2011, 2012).

Anna Rohrer won her first title as a sophomore in 2012 before a season-ending injury that sidelined her for cross country last season. She broke both navicular bones in her feet and was forced to utilize a wheelchair for some time. With proper recovery and a change in her running technique, Rohrer found herself back at the top of the national lists later that spring. She returned with vengeance and broke the Indiana high school record for 3200m (10:14.43) and the New Balance Outdoor National Championship in 16:16. After taking time off after NBON, she won her first cross country race on October 11th in a modest time of 18:54.16. Since then, she has shaved nearly two minutes from that mark. She won the FL Midwest Regional in 16:57.00, missing her course record by three seconds, an impressive feat considering the muddy and sloshy conditions of the course. Winning a second title in non-consecutive years puts her in a category that only Jordan Hasay has made for herself.

Both Fisher and Rohrer are ranked number one in the MileSplit Saucony Flo50 Rankings, and with the way their senior seasons have progressed, it will be fitting if they collect their second national titles in San Diego this weekend. We have a feeling their seasons will end without any blemishes.