ST. LEO, Fla. -- The Augustana cross country teams turned out historic performances at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships in St. Leo, Florida, on Saturday morning.

The women started the day having their best national finish since 2012, scoring 118 to place third overall. The men of Augustana had their best finish since 2014, placing fourth overall, scoring 222 points.

"Having both teams on the podium is such an unbelievable performance from our teams," Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Tracy Hellman said. "The coaching staff is so proud of what these teams accomplished today. It was a very tough race but we battled and persevered.

"We had big goals this year and it is so rewarding to accomplish those goals. We finished with six All-Americans and all our kids had their best races of the year!"

Megan Means ran to the front from the gun and held the third-place position through 1.3k with the team in second through that distance at 125 points.

After 3,000m the women of Augustana securely held down the third-place spot at 154 points with the top-five within the top 70 places.

Means was the first Viking through the 3,000m mark with Nicolette Schmidt and Patty Jo English coming through in 22nd and 25th place, respectively.

At 5,000m, the Vikings had an average time of 17:45.1 with a spread of 45.1 seconds. 

Means was the first Viking through the finish placing eighth overall in a time of 20:46.2. Schmidt and English were close behind with times of 21:12.6 and 21:18.7 to place 20th and 28th, respectively.

Two Vikings moved up significantly over the last 1,000m. Mia Salas jumped 15 spots to go from 47th place down to 32nd and Rachel Rairdon moved from 54th to 45th place to round out Augustana's scorers.

Rebekah Rairdon and Haylee Waterfall rounded out the Vikings with times of 21:40.0 and 21:54.2 good for 54th and 74 places, respectively.

Overall, Augustana's average time was 21:14.1 with a spread of 44.9 seconds.

The men of Augustana got into a good position, being in first place through 550m with the top-seven through all within the first 29 spots.

The Vikings settled in and held down the fifth-place position through 3,000m being led by Ryan Hartman coming through in 36th place.

As a team, Augustana's average through 8,000m was 25:13.2 with a spread of 47.5 seconds.

Augustana consistently held the fifth-place position through 8.8k with the top-five within the top 74. Hartman remained the low-stick (27th) with Henry Klitzke (40th), Austin Miller (60th), Matt Steiger (70th) and Kray Person (75th).

The Vikings came up big within the last 1,200m with both Hartman and Klitzke moving up five spots apiece along with Miller showing his middle-distance strength, moving up 14 spots in the same stretch to help Augustana to a podium finish.

Steiger moved up two spots to finish 69th for Augustana in 32:06 and Kray Person placed 78th in 32:13.7 to round out the scoring for the Vikings.

Evan Johnson and Alec Kray finished 109 and 127, respectively to make up the top-seven for Augustana.

The Vikings averaged the 10,000m course in 31:42.6 with a spread of 1:09.

In total Augustana had sixth All-American finishers with Means (8), Schmidt (20), English (28) and Salas (32) on the women's side, with Hartman (22nd) and Klitzke (36th), earning All-America for the men.

"Our fan support today at the meet was unbelievable. We close this year with two podium teams and that is such a great accomplishment for our programs," Hellman added, "As we always have said: It's a great day to be a Viking!"

--GoAugie.com--