2016 Cross Country Recap
The University of British Columbia women’s cross-country program is approaching dynasty-level status having won its fourth NAIA championship in the last five years. This year’s national cross-country championships were held in Elsah, Ill., located north of St. Louis on the Illinois-Missouri border.
The UBC men were initially listed as team champions, unofficially, but were later bumped to third due an error with the host organization’s timing equipment. The podium finish is the best result in men’s program history.
Prior to the NAIA Cross-Country Championships, the UBC Thunderbirds showed many signs of its late-season success sweeping the conference titles. It was the second consecutive year that UBC won both the men’s and women’s Association of Independent Institutions (A.I.I.) Championships. Both teams scored 15 points, the best possible outcome. The individual champions, Natalia Hawthorn and John Gay, earned conference athlete of the week honours for their Nov. 5 runs.
The only other instance that the UBC Thunderbirds found themselves atop the team podium this season was in the men’s race at the 42nd Annual Charles Bowles Willamette Invitational in early October. UBC began its season at the Sundodger Invitational in Seattle and also competed in Bellingham, Wash. and Nanaimo, B.C.
At the national championships, UBC placed three women in the top-20 including Hawthorn in sixth, Nicola Symonds in 14th and Brianna Cairns in 16th. Hawthorn and Cairns ran their final cross-country races for UBC in southern Illinois. Madelyn Brunt (30th) and Sandra Kilmartin (42nd) secured the women’s team title placing fourth and fifth on the team giving the T-Birds a 45-point edge over second place.
Northwest Christian University, which placed runner-up at the 2016 championships, is the only other institution since 2011 to have won the women’s 5K national title. This year’s championship also marked the first time the program has won a national cross-country championship under head coach Laurier Primeau, who took over for Marek Jedrzejek in 2015.
In the men’s 8K race, Jesse Hooton and Gay had the best 1-2 punch of any program at the NAIA championships placing fourth and fifth overall, respectively. Kieran Lumb secured All-American status placing 26th.
One week after the NAIA Cross-Country Championships, Lumb qualified for the 2017 IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Kampala, Uganda and the 2017 Pan American Cross-Country Cup in Boca Raton, Fla. He finished sixth in the U20 division at the Nov. 26 national championships in Kingston, Ont. to secure his spot on Team Canada.
