Tulsa Race Saturday at NCAA Cross Country Championship

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TULSA, Okla. –– The University of Tulsa men's cross country team will race in the NCAA Division I Cross Country National Championship in Tallahassee, Fla. on Saturday. It's the fourth year in a row the men have earned an invitation to the national event.

The 10th-ranked Golden Hurricane will compete in the 10K event at the Apalachee Regional Park cross country course. The race will start at 10:10 a.m. (CT) and ESPNU will air the event live.

In all, 31 teams will compete for the title, with Tulsa punching its ticket via an at-large bid following a third-place finish in the Midwest Regional a week ago. Third-ranked Oklahoma State and No. 6 Iowa State earned the automatic bids as the Cyclones narrowly edged out the Hurricane for the spot. Minnesota rounds out the participants from the Midwest Region.

Northern Arizona enters as the No. 1 ranked team, a spot it has held wire-to-wire. The Lumberjacks will look to continue their success at the national event, winning four of the past five seasons, and finishing runner-up the only time they haven't taken home the top prize. NAU returns five of its runners from last season's title-winning team. BYU comes in as the second-place team, the only team to beat Northern Arizona in its stretch of championships.

Tulsa is making its 12th appearance at the National Championship, all in the past 15 years. The Hurricane come in on the heels of strong performances in its previous three events. The team finished third at the prestigious Nuttycombe Invitational on Oct. 15 in Madison, Wisc. Two weeks later, the men won their 12th consecutive American Athletic Conference Championship before the third-place finish at regionals.

In last season's NCAA meet, Tulsa had three runners finish in the top 20 en route to a sixth-place finish. Northern Arizona won the title with a 60-point performance, the best since 2005, while the Hurricane scored 237. It was Tulsa's second-best showing in program history behind 2019's fifth-place finish.

Patrick Dever turned in Tulsa's first top-five finish in school history, while Peter Lynch (12th) and Isaac Akers (19th) placed in the top 20 to earn All-American honors. For Lynch and Dever, it was their second time to place as All-Americans.

Akers and Lynch will once again don the Tulsa uniform at the national championship on Saturday. The American's 2021 individual champion Scott Beattie, and Shay McEvoy also return from last year's team.

Expected Runners
Men
1) Isaac Akers
2) Scott Beattie
3) Cormac Dalton
4) Peter Lynch
5) Chris McLeod
6) Shay McEvoy
7) Michael Power

Alternates
1) Christian Baker
2) Michael Gates
3) Malte Propp

Tulsa Race Saturday at NCAA Cross Country Championship

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Players Mentioned

Isaac Akers

Christian Baker

Scott Beattie

Cormac Dalton

Patrick Dever

Michael Gates

Peter Lynch

Shay McEvoy

Chris McLeod

Micheal Power

Malte Propp