DSU Men’s Cross Country Team Wins NSAA Title

Yesterday, the Dakota State men’s cross country team cruised to their fifth straight North Star title. Seven DSU runners placed in the top 10 (as well as 12 runners in the top 20), dominating the conference meet with a record low of 19 points (previous lowest score was 24 points twice by the Trojans in 2020 and Dickinson State in 2015).

It was the sixth overall NSAA Men’s Cross Country team title since 2014, bringing a total of 11 men’s cross country conference titles in program history, as DSU has done it 4 times in the former South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference and one time in the Dakota Athletic Conference.

Dickinson State finished second with 67 points, while Viterbo edged Bellevue by four points. Valley City State was fifth with 106 points, followed by Waldorf with 157 points. A total of 48 runners ran in the 8K racecourse.

Cody Farland captured the North Star individual title with a time of 26 minutes, 11.1 seconds for the Trojans, allowing Farland to be named the NSAA Men’s Cross Country Runner-of-the-Year.

Martin Bailey finished third with a time of 26 minutes, 45.50 seconds to earn a third-place finish for DSU.  Tyler Kennedy followed up with a fourth place with a personal record time of 26:46.20, Taylor Myers fifth in 26:47.40, and Curtis Johnson sixth with a personal best time of 27 minutes, .10 seconds. Colter Elkin was eighth with a time of 27 minutes, 11 seconds while Evan Slominski was 10th in 27:16.90.

Farland, Bailey, Kennedy, Myers, Johnson, Elkin, and Slominski earned the NSAA Men’s Cross-Country All-Conference honor. Myers and Slominski collected their third NSAA All-Conference allocades. It was the second time Bailey, Elkin, Farland, and Kennedy had received the All-Conference award.

Dalton Brouwer came up with a 12th-place finish with a time of 27 minutes, 29.50 seconds for Dakota State.  Espen Lehnst was 14th after clocking a time of 28 minutes, 1.8 seconds, followed by Ian Beyer with a 15th place finish with a personal best time of 28 minutes, 8 seconds. Daniel Green was 16th in 28 minutes, 11.4 seconds.

Trojans Coach Anthony Drealan, was selected as the NSAA Men’s Cross-Country Coach-of-the-Year for the fifth straight year. 

Dakota State will be representing the NSAA in the 67th annual NAIA Men’s Cross-Country National Championships on Friday, November 18th. The national meet will be held at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Florida, starting with the men’s race at 8:30am ET.