Iowa State, Oklahoma State Sweep Midwest Region

Iowa State, Oklahoma State Sweep Midwest Region

The Iowa State and Oklahoma State men and women swept the NCAA DI Midwest Regional as Karissa Schweizer and Jon Davis won the individual titles.

Nov 10, 2017 by Johanna Gretschel
Iowa State, Oklahoma State Sweep Midwest Region
The Big 12 conference rivalry was fully in action at the NCAA DI Midwest Regional as Iowa State and Oklahoma State finished first and second in both the men's and women's championship races today in Ames. Defending NCAA champion Karissa Schweizer of Missouri easily won the individual women's title in 19:50.9, while true sophomore Jon Davis of Illinois distanced FloXC No. 9 ranked Hassan Abdi of Oklahoma State in the final stretch to win his first individual regional title.

FULL RESULTS HERE

The Iowa State women distanced their Big 12 rivals OK State by just 13 points to win 90 to 103. True freshman Cailie Logue led the squad with a third place finish behind Schweizer and Kansas' All-American Sharon Lokedi in 20:13.7. Annie Frisbie (9th, 20:27.8), fellow true frosh Amanda Vestri (11th, 20:29.5), another true freshman Karly Ackley (26th, 20:49.6) and Kelly Naumann (41st, 21:08.2) combined to win their first regional title since 2014.


Oklahoma State ran an impressive 19-second top five spread to secure the second automatic qualifier spot to NCAAs, thanks to Kaytlyn Larson (13th, 20:30.8), Molly Sughroue (17th, 20:37.8), Kaylee Dodd (21st, 20:47.2), Gintare Kenkeviciute (25th, 20:49) and Cheyenne Walden (27th, 20:49.6).

The Minnesota and Missouri women are projected to receive at-large invitations to NCAAs for their third and fourth place finishes.

The men's team battle was tight through the entire 10K between No. 13 Iowa State, No. 24 Oklahoma State, Tulsa and Illinois. It wasn't until the final kilometer that Iowa State clinched the win, thanks to late-race surges from Dan Curts and Andrew Jordan, who would place third and fourth overall - both in 29:13 behind Davis in 29:06.2 and Hassan in 29:11.3. The team win marks the Iowa State men's first-ever regional cross country title and they did it without the aid of potential top scorer Festus Lagat. Behind Curts and Jordan, Stanley Langat (18th, 29:37.8), Nathan Rodriguez (20th, 29:40.5) and true freshman Milo Greder (24th, 29:42.6) rounded out scoring.


Five points behind were regional runners-up Oklahoma State with 74 total points. They packed their entire top five into the top 22 overall finishers to clinch the bid to nationals -- something they needed to do to make NCAAs, as the Cowboys did not have any Kolas points on the table entering regional weekend. Behind Hassan, the Cowboys' scorers included Luis Martinez (10th, 29:19), Christian Liddell (19th, 29:40), Noah Gade (21st, 29:41.3) and Ryan Smeeton (22nd, 29:41.3).