Bobcat Men Head to Stillwater for NCAA XC Championships
11/18/2022 11:48:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
The Montana State men’s cross country team makes its second trip to Stillwater, Okla. of the season this Saturday for the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
BOZEMAN, Mont. — Follow collegiate cross country long enough, and the same handful of schools appear on NCAA Cross Country Championships results. West Coast powers like BYU, Oregon, Colorado, Northern Arizona and Stanford routinely make the national championship race. Out east, the Big Ten, ACC and SEC routinely send several teams to the NCAAs, leaving the rest of Division I to fight for 13 at-large bids.
Yet, this Saturday at 9:10 a.m. MT, the Montana State Bobcat men's cross country team will have its own box along the vast starting line of Oklahoma State's Greiner Family Cross Country Course. No need to squint for the one or two individuals wearing white and blue: The Bobcats are here as a team for the first time in 20 years.
The Bobcats' road to the NCAA Cross Country Championships has been years in the making — a path filled with heartbreaking near-misses, bittersweet moments of sending individual qualifiers to the NCAAs and collective belief in a plan that Dale Kennedy Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Lyle Weese set in motion five years ago.
"I keep thinking about the plan Lyle laid out for us during my freshman year," Fifth-year senior and team leader Duncan Hamilton, who will be making his third appearance at NCAAs, said. "This has been years in the making and it's taken everyone buying in 100% to make it happen. I'm super happy to wear the Montana State jersey at another NCAA meet."
A PROMISE FULFILLED
Montana State's return to the NCAAs didn't happen overnight.
Talk to the runners about this season, and the team is quick to point out that the disappointment of the 2021 season is one of the main catalysts for this season's success.
Needing what junior Matthew Richtman called "a perfect day" to punch their ticket to nationals, the Montana State men's cross country team toed the line at Timpanogos Golf Club in Provo, Utah for the 2021 NCAA Mountain Regionals. Half an hour of running at altitude later, the results were in: The Bobcats needed a tiebreaker over Utah State to place seventh. The NCAA's Selection Show would decide their fate.
When the selection show aired and revealed the field in alphabetical order, the Bobcats were dismayed once they saw North Carolina's name appear on the screen. To further twist the knife, Southern Utah, a team that beat out MSU at the Big Sky Championships, flashed upon the screen moments later as the at-large bids were announced.
Although Hamilton and Richtman qualified individually, the moment was bittersweet. The Bobcats would later learn they were one of the final teams left out of the field.
"I don't think I knew it at the time, but the day after regionals last year was very tough from a mental standpoint," Sophomore Owen Smith, a Billings Senior graduate said. "Obviously we had a couple of guys qualify for NCAAs, but we knew that wasn't enough. It was really tough mentally knowing that we could've gone to nationals if we raced to the best of our abilities."
From that point forward, the Bobcats decided that they wouldn't be disappointed again. A collective shift in mentality, a sharper focus on training and belief in each other helped bring MSU together over the next year.
"Right after regionals last year, we all convinced each other that we could make it to nationals and we talked ourselves into it," Sophomore Levi Taylor said. "From that point on, we started acting like a nationally ranked team."
Even throughout Montana State's most successful track season in recent memory, the thought of cross country was on the team's minds.
And the Bobcats certainly didn't coast throughout track season. Hamilton qualified for indoor and outdoor nationals, then he and Taylor earned All-American honors in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Richtman and Ben Perrin qualified for the NCAA West Preliminary in the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters, respectively, as all four runners etched their names in the program's top-10 track record books.
"We've had a chip on our shoulder for the past year," Perrin, a Kalispell, Mont. native and an All-Big Sky honoree, said. "We loved running track last year, but all we could do was talk about cross. I knew nobody was going to let us get left out of the field happen again."
Throughout the summer, the team held each other accountable and put in the work for fall. Despite having a quick turnaround from competing at the USATF Outdoor Championships in late June, Hamilton and Taylor switched their focus back to training for cross country. As a team, the Bobcats held a team camp in Libby, Mont., bringing an already tight-knit group closer together before their historic season.
"Sometime in August when we got back to school for the fall, the team felt like it was so tight," Sophomore Rob McManus said. "We felt a lot more focused and driven. Then in September, our workouts were going so well and we were doing high-mileage weeks. I remember keeping this thought to myself, but I had no doubt in my mind that we were going nationals."
MAKING A COMEBACK
Lest it is misunderstood: Montana State's appearance in the NCAA field isn't a fluke.
Expectations were high for the Montana State cross country team going into the season. Given the Bobcats returned all seven varsity runners from the 2021 season, Montana State was ranked No. 24 in the preseason USTFCCCA Division 1 National Coaches' poll.
From there, the Bobcats proved they belonged with the nation's best.
MSU opened the season with a perfect score at the MSU Cross Country Classic, then the Bobcats had their first big test at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invite. Competing in a field that featured five nationally ranked teams, the Bobcats stuck up towards the front and had all seven runners finish 18.2 seconds apart to help the team place fourth.
"Towards the first quarter of the season, you could tell that from top to bottom, the whole team had stepped up in a huge way and that everyone was giving their all," Senior Cooper West said. "Everyone knew we were capable of it, so when we saw that everybody had bought in, we knew it was going to be a special year."
While most of the nation had its eyes on the Nuttycombe Invitational, the Bobcats used a thrilling last-second push down the home stretch of the Greiner Family Cross Country Course to beat California Baptist 62-63 at the Weis-Crockett/Pre-Nationals Invitational. Hamilton led the way to win in 23:28.8, then Richtman (4th) and Perrin (9th) had top-10 finishes to seal the deal.
"During every single race, I've had the most confidence I've ever had," Richtman said. "At our first home meet at Bridger Creek, we swept the meet and really ran like a team. I think our mentality changed from the previous year. "
MSU's interchangeability has been its calling card; to wit, four different athletes have acted as the Bobcats' fourth and fifth scoring runners. Throughout the season, a different Bobcat has stepped up in each race, proving that Montana State isn't a top-heavy team.
The 18-second spread at the Notre Dame Invite epitomizes MSU's depth, yet several individual efforts have helped the Bobcats make it to NCAAs.
At Pre-Nationals, Perrin, McManus and Taylor all edged out a CBU runner by fractions of a second to help the Bobcats hold off the Lancers. Then at Big Skys, West had the best race of his collegiate career and broke the 24-minute barrier for the first time ever to place 11th. With a bid to NCAAs on the line, Richtman surged six places in the last 1,000 meters at the NCAA West Regionals to place fourth, only behind Hamilton and Northern Arizona's Nico Young and Drew Bosley.
If either one of those moments broke another way, perhaps the Bobcats would be in Bozeman instead of Stillwater this weekend.
"Our order has switched around a lot this year," Richtman, an All-Region and All-Big Sky-caliber runner making his second NCAA appearance, said. "Going into a meet, we don't know who's going to be in our top five, but we do know that someone is always going to step up when it matters — even when someone's not having their best day."
SHADES OF 2002
Unlike the NAUs and Oregons of the world, Montana State doesn't get sub-four milers or any of the high school superstars crowned as the Next Big Thing by distance-running media at large.
One look at the men's roster shows Weese has gathered a cast of Montanans, Washingtonians and Richtman, a transfer from Bradley University, to Bozeman. Under Weese's development program, in-state runners from Bozeman, Kalispell, Great Falls, Billings and Laurel, have turned into All-Region and All-American-caliber athletes.
"We have a lot of pride in Montana and we're proud to represent the state," Smith said.
Weese is the one constant from the 2002 and the 2022 teams, yet the similarities don't stop there. The 2002 team also featured five Montanans in the top seven, plus two from Washington. This year's roster also has five Montanans: Hamilton (Bozeman), Perrin (Kalispell), Smith (Billings), Taylor (Laurel) and West (Great Falls). McManus (Cashmere, Wash.) and Richtman (Elburn, Ill.) are the lone out-of-state runners, yet both have been called "honorary Montanans" by the rest of the group.
And, as fate would have it, the 2022 Bobcats qualified for NCAAs on the University of New Mexico North Course — the same course that hosted the 2002 NCAA XC Championships.
"Both the 2002 team and this team have a lot of runners from Montana high schools who came together, kept getting better over the years and were able to get to a level where they were able to compete with the rest of the NCAA," Weese said. "I think this team and the 2002 team are both so close-knit and treat each other well."
West echoed his coach's sentiment, saying that the team is able to balance the hard work distance running involves while being a close-knit group.
"I don't think I've ever had as much fun around a group of people before," West said. "Sometimes, five minutes before a terribly hard workout and we're on the ground laughing at some stupid joke. We don't take things too seriously, but we know we always get the work done."
The 2022 NCAA Cross Country Championships will take place at the Greiner Family Cross Country Course, located in Stillwater, Okla. on Nov. 19. The men's race is scheduled to start at 9:10 a.m. MT and the race will be televised on ESPNU.
2022 MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY ACCOLADES
- Ranked 18th in the USTFCCCA national coaches' poll (best since 2002)
- Two All-Region selections: Duncan Hamilton (3rd), Matthew Richtman (4th)
- Three All-Big Sky Conference selections: Duncan Hamilton (3rd), Ben Perrin (6th), Matthew Richtman (8th)
- Two Big Sky XC Athlete of the Week awards: Duncan Hamilton (10/18), Ben Perrin (10/4)
- Three individual wins from Duncan Hamilton: 23:28.8 at the Weis-Crockett/Pre-Nationals Invitational, 24:30.9 at the MSU Cross Country Classic and 14:50.2 at the Bobcat Twilight race.
- Seven men have gone sub-25 in the 8K: Hamilton, Richtman, Perrin, West, Levi Taylor, Rob McManus, Owen Smith and Riley Collins.
- Four have gone sub-24 this season in the 8K: Hamilton, Richtman, Perrin and Cooper West
- Placed fifth or better as a team at all seven races this season
- Won the Weis-Crockett/Pre-Nationals Invitational
- Won the MSU Cross Country Classic with a perfect score
