STILLWATER, Okla. — Gonzaga Men's Cross Country finished its third-straight NCAA Championship appearance with its best team finish in history on Saturday morning at Oklahoma State University, placing 13th overall.
Yacine Guermali's 41st-place finish in 29:36.3 led a 399-point outing for the Bulldogs, who went from 29th place over the first three kilometers to 13th thanks to a balanced race that also saw Wil Smith (59th, 29:50.4) crack the Top 100 — the second time two GU runners have placed in the Top 100 after Guermali and Peter Hogan went 55th and 79th in March of 2021. Two kilometers into the race, Smith was the leading runner for the Zags in 127th place before they worked their way through the competition over the next eight, moving up in the team standings with each passing kilometer. Smith and Guermali were followed by James Mwaura (101st, 30:12.4), Cullen McEachern (128th, 30:26.7), Kyle Radosevich (133rd, 30:27.8), Riley Moore (203rd, 31:05.5) and Bryce Cerkowniak (220th, 31:26.3).
GU entered the race ranked No. 15 in the nation in the most recent USTFCCA polls, with the Bulldogs knocking off three teams ranked higher than them — No. 13 Notre Dame, No. 11 Villanova and No. 14 Tennessee.
"When you hear 13th, it's honestly amazing," said Guermali, who narrowly missed out on All-American honors. "For us, our plan was just to run super composed and finish strong and there was a lot of moving up in the results.
"That's obviously my last race as a Zag — when I came in, a lot of times we were 10th in the region. So 13th in the country is not too bad."
GU's point-scorers finished with a 51.6-second spread between them and an average of 30:06.7, both the Zags' best in an NCAA Championship race. GU has improved its finish in each of its three appearances at NCAA's, finishing 27th in March of 2021 and 26th last November.
"We ran a conservative race, unlike a year ago and last March, where we ran an aggressive race and paid the price," said GU Head Coach Pat Tyson. "So if you look at the results and you look at every individual in their progression over every K, we were in the green. I'm really proud of these guys for enduring, particularly these three seniors that are going to graduate. They fought, and collectively, these Washington high school grads came together and pulled off the greatest cross country race team wise in Gonzaga history."
"You look at the results and you see who we beat and who is ranked way better than us," Tyson said. "So I'm really, really proud. I think we maximized our team performance today."
