Men’s Cross Country retains No. 2 ranking heading into NAIA National Championships

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (November 7, 2023) – The Milligan University men's cross country team was slotted as the No. 2 team in the final NAIA Men's Cross Country Coaches' Top 25 rating before the NAIA National Championships on Tuesday.

The Buffs spent the entire 2023 season ranked in the top five nationally and held down the No. 2 spot in the final three pre-championship polls. Milligan has made 34-straight top-25 appearances and has been ranked inside the top 10 in every poll in the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons. Indiana Wesleyan holds the top spot with 18 first-place votes with the Buffs collecting the other two first-place nods.

At the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) Championships in Knoxville on Friday the Buffs captured their fifth-straight conference title with a team score of 25. Milligan had the individual champion, three of the top five finishers and six top-10 runners.

Bryn Woodall repeated as the AAC Champion and AAC Runner of the Year as he topped the 113-man 8k field with a time of 24:03. Will Stockley was the conference runner-up for the third-straight season (24:11) and Aaron Jones earned All-AAC First Team honors for the fourth time with a fifth-place finish in 24:28.

Zimri Kuhn, Bryson Lewis and Alex Brittain each turned in personal-record times as the trio finishes eighth, ninth and 10th respectively. Kuhn crossed the finish line in 24:53, Lewis followed in 25:01 and Brittain in 25:05. Kuhn's effort ranks 10th on the team's all-time 8k leaderboard.

With the win at the conference championship, the Buffs clinched a spot for at the NAIA National Championships for the eighth time in the last nine seasons. The 2023 NAIA National Championships are Nov. 17 at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Championship Course in Vancouver, Wash., where the Buffs won the NAIA national title in 2021.