Women’s Cross Country keeps No. 1 spot in NAIA national rankings

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (October 6, 2022) – The Milligan University women's cross country team was named as the No. 1 team in the second in-season edition of the NAIA Women's Cross Country Coaches' Top 25 Poll.

The 2021 NAIA national champions received 14 first-place votes and collected 585 points in the poll. Taylor is the No. 2 team in the nation with 578 points and seven first-place ballots.

The Buffs have been nationally ranked for the last 56-straight top-25 rankings, dating back to 2015. Milligan has appeared inside the top 10 in the last 23 polls. The Buffs have been named the No. 1 team for each of the last four polls.

Since the first set of in-season rankings on Sept. 22, the Buffs have posted first-place finishes at the Queen City Invitational and the Eli Cramer Invitational.

At the Queen City Invite in Charlotte, Milligan finished first of 15 teams, ahead of several NCAA Division I and regionally-ranked NCAA Division II squads. Freshman Ellen Mary Kearney impressed in her collegiate debut by finishing second overall in the 144-woman field with a 5k time of 17:36. Her effort landed Kearney fourth on Milligan's all-time cross country 5k leaderboard and she collected NAIA National Athlete of the Week honors from the USTFCCCA.

Defending NAIA national champion Alyssa Bearzi finished fifth (17:57), Caitlin Dominy followed in eighth (18:03), Lizzy Lucason crossed 11th (18:18) and Olivia Doran was 20th (18:44) as the Buffs won the meet with a team score of 29.

Last Friday, Milligan hosted the Eli Cramer Invitational on the campus of Milligan University. The Buffs finished first of three teams the at three-mile event. Gracie Allen was Milligan's top finisher in 19:00, the fourth-fastest three-mile time in team history. Anna Jones, Natalie Fellers, Annie Kate McDermott and Kaelyn Slaughter joined Allen with top-10 finishes.

Milligan returns to Charlotte tomorrow for the Royals Challenge invitational race at 5:05 p.m.