Women's Cross Country | 10/26/23 | 9:10 AM

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has released the latest NAIA Men's and Women's Cross Country Coaches' Top 25 Polls. Carroll College appears on both the Men's and Women's Polls, at No. 25 and No. 16, respectively.

For the first time in the 2023 season, both Fighting Saints teams have moved back in the bi-weekly NAIA Coaches' Poll, following their performance at the Great Lakes Challenge in Grand Rapids, Mich. last weekend.

The Carroll Women slid back three spots, and now find themselves at No. 16 in the national poll.

As a team, the Carroll Women placed fifth at last weekend's Great Lakes Challenge, finishing as the top Frontier Conference school, even in adverse running conditions.

Carroll remains the highest-rated team in the Frontier Conference at No. 16, followed by Montana Tech (No. 20) and Rocky Mountain College (No. 23).

The Carroll Men saw an unfortunate drop in the national poll following a sub-par performance in Michigan relative to the team's expectations and standards. The Saints now sit at No. 25 in the national poll, falling nine spots from their previous rating at No. 16.

A ninth-place team finish last weekend in Michigan where the Saints finished third out of Frontier teams participating led to the drop.

Both the Carroll Men and Women are hard at work preparing for the Frontier Conference Cross Country Championships next Friday at Eagle Falls Golf Course in Great Falls, Mont. where they will look to defend their streaks of consecutive conference titles on each side.

Visit www.carrollathletics.com for a preview of the meet, and to stay up to date with everything going on in Carroll Athletics.

Rating Methodology:

• The Top 25 was voted upon by a panel of head coaches representing each of the conferences, and Unaffiliated Groupings.
• The Top 25 is determined by a points system based on how each voter ranks the best teams. A team receives 30 points for each first-place vote, 29 for second-place and so on through the list.
• The highest and lowest ranking for each team (a non-rating is considered a low ratings) is removed and the team's ranking will be recalculated with an additional point added to each team for every ballot (including discounted ballots) that the teams appears on.
• Teams that receive only one point in the ballot are not considered "receiving votes"

Dropped from Top 25: Southern Oregon, Embry-Riddle (Ariz.), Olivet Nazarene (Ill.), Northwest (Wash.)

Others Receiving Votes: Southern Oregon 114, Embry-Riddle (Ariz.) 109, Olivet Nazarene (Ill.) 87, Northwest (Wash.) 45, Marian (Ind.) 28, Benedictine (Kan.) 23, Cornerstone (Mich.) 9, Texas Wesleyan 5, Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) 5, UC Merced (Calif.) 3, Tabor (Kan.) 3, Rio Grande (Ohio) 3.


WOMEN'S NAIA COACHES' POLL

Dropped from Top 25: Indiana Tech

Others Receiving Votes: Eastern Oregon 82, Michigan-Dearborn 71, Doane (Neb.) 65, Vanguard (Calif.) 64, William Carey (Miss.) 59, Indiana Tech 50, Texas Wesleyan 34, William Woods (Mo.) 12, College of the Ozarks (Mo.) 12, Oklahoma City 9, Aquinas (Mich.) 9, Hastings (Neb.) 6.