For the first time this fall, several top cross country teams and individuals will get a taste of the NCAA championship course at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Kentucky. At the Louisville Sports Commission XC Classic on Saturday, the No. 1-ranked Northern Arizona men and No. 2-ranked individual Allie Ostrander will lead an exciting field with some making their season debuts. 

Ostrander competing is arguably the most highly anticipated debut. The meet will mark the Boise State redshirt sophomore's first cross country race since finishing second at the 2015 NCAA championships, which also took place in Louisville. Her runner-up finish to Notre Dame's Molly Seidel was the best performance by a freshman. Had she won the NCAA crown, Ostrander would have been the first freshman to accomplish the feat in 30 years. Unfortunately, the 2016 cross country season was met with heartbreak when Ostrander suffered from a sacral stress fracture during summer training and was forced to redshirt the season before it began. 

She has since regained health and returned to compete in the 2017 track season, during which she made her debut in the steeplechase. In her first steeplechase of her career, Ostrander beat several professionals with a winning time of 9:55. To put her performance in perspective, no athlete in the Olympic Trials final ran a faster steeplechase debut than Ostrander's 9:55.61 run at the Stanford Invitational. She went on to win the NCAA title in the event. 

With a strong track season behind her and proven strength on the grass, Ostrander earned the No. 2 FloXC ranking behind defending champion Karissa Schweizer. But her coach, Corey Ihmels, thinks Ostrander has the potential to be No. 1. 

"The one thing about Allie is if you can get her to the line healthy and feeling pretty good, she's pretty hard to beat," Ihmels told the Idaho Press. "At the end of the day when the gun goes off, I get to sit back and watch. It's quite the show and I wouldn't bet against her."

Louisville will mark the first test for the cross country title contender. 

Along with Ostrander, No. 14 Allie Buchalski, No. 17 Wisconsin, No. 20 West Virginia, and No. 24 Vanderbilt will toe the line. 

On the men's side, defending NCAA champions Northern Arizona will be running at the site of the NCAA championships for the first time this season. Last year, the Lumberjacks executed the ultimate performance when they won the NCAA team title for their then-head coach Eric Heinz, who departed after the fall season. The Lumberjacks defended their No. 1 ranking by winning the program's first-ever NCAA cross country title. 



This year, coach Mike Smith gets to lead the squad in the defense of their NCAA crown. The team only lost two of its top seven athletes to graduation, and they return All-Americans Matt Baxter, Tyler Day, Andy Trouard, and top contributors Cory Glines and Geordie Beamish. 

The Lumberjacks opened the season on September 2 with a rust-buster effort at the George Kyte Classic, where the team scored 15 points and swept the top five positions. Peter Lomong, Day, Trouard, Beamish, Baxter, Ryan Wolff, and Glines all made strong fall debuts. But Louisville will mark the team's first competitive performance of the year. 

Contending against the defending champions in Louisville will be No. 8 Wisconsin, No. 12 Furman, No. 13 Boise State, and No. 25 Middle Tennessee State.