Denison NCAC Championships Information Site
This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster men's and women's cross country team is off to Denison University for this year's North Coast Athletic Conference Championships, which take place on Saturday, October 28 at Infirmary Mound Park in Granville, Ohio. The men's 8,000-meter race kicks off at 11 a.m., with the women's 6,000-meter race to follow at 12:15 p.m. An awards ceremony will take place upon the conclusion of the women's championship race. Admission to the NCAC Championships is free.
Media Coverage: On The Mark Timing will provide live results.
NCAC History: Wooster has won six NCAC cross country titles, four on the women's side and two on the men's side. Wooster's women won three consecutive championships from 1996-98, while the men and women swept the titles at the 1987 conference meet. Wooster's last top-three finish on the women's side came at the 2021 championships, while the men were most recently a top-three team in 2018. Todd Fach (1984, 1986, 1987), Jason Kelley (1990, 1991), Scott Michalek (1988), Emily Moorefield (1994), and Katie Wieferich (2005, 2006) are Wooster's individual NCAC champions. Alumna Isabelle Hoover's fourth-place finish on the women's since at last year's championship marked the women's highest finish since Wieferich's 2006 NCAC tape-breaker, while alumnus David Westcott's fourth-place time of 25:53.8 in 2018 marks the last time a Scot male finished in the top-five.
MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY NOTEBOOK
A Look Back: Wooster's men's cross country team placed sixth at the 2022 NCAC Championships, held on campus at L.C. Boles Memorial Golf Course. Then-sophomores Will Callender (Seattle, Wash./Roosevelt) and Ben Nichols (Grove City, Pa./Grove City) led the pack as all-conference harriers. Callender earned second-team All-NCAC honors for the second straight year with the 14th-place time of 27:33.8. Nichols debuted on the All-NCAC team as a third-team performer with the 19th-place time of 27:41.1. Drew Robertson (Bébalem, Chad/Rift Valley Academy (Kenya)) was about three second shy of making third-team all-conference, running a 27:52.5 for 22nd-place. Junior Eric Johnson (Athens, Ohio/Athens) is Wooster's other returning scorer form last year, while Mitch Ecklund (East Lansing, Mich./Haslett) and Proto Protopapadakis (Chestnut Hill, Mass./Brookline) are the others back from last year's top seven.
Fueled by Juniors: Juniors are at the heart of Wooster's team, as evidenced by the top returning scorers from last year's conference team. Callender followed his all-conference performance with an all-region finish at Three Fires Golf Club in Holland, Michigan. Cold weather and snow did not slow Callender one bit at regionals, where he smashed his career-best championship-length time en route to a 30th-place finish on November 12. Callender's 25:00.7 was his best championship-length time by 27.2 seconds and the now-junior crossed 81 spots higher than his debut regional finish in 2021. Nichols, Robertson, and Johnson rounded out Wooster's top four scorers at last year's regional meet.
Scots Win: Wooster's 24 points bested host Muskingum University by nine points for the team title at the Dan Mullen Memorial Invitational on September 30. Wooster's entire scoring contingent – Callender (second-place, 27:06.5), Johnson (fourth-place, 29:43.7), sophomore Joe Ahmann (Richfield, Ohio/Padua Franciscan) (sixth-place, 30:23.4), sophomore Zane DeMercurio (Amherst, Ohio/Amherst Steele) (eight-place, 31:02.4), and first-year Nick Schade (Olney, Md./Sherwood) (ninth-place, 31:30.5) – were all within the field's top-10.
Record Setters: Robertson established the L.C. Boles Memorial Golf Course men's 4,000-meter record with a convincing blue-ribbon time of 12:57.6 to cap the season-opening Wooster Invitational on September 1. Twenty days later, Robertson went 15:54.5 in the 5,000 meters in a dual meet with Denison. While Robertson was edged out at the finish, he did set the program's course record for the 5,000 meters in the process.
WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY NOTEBOOK
Flashback to 2022: Wooster placed seventh at the 2022 NCAC Championships, which were hosted by the College at L.C. Boles Memorial Golf Course. Hoover finished fourth in the women's race with a time of 23:54.9 to earn first-team All-NCAC honors. Hoover became a four-time All-NCAC performer with the finish and earned first-team status for the second year in a row. Junior Igna Mendez (Santiago, Chile/Mayflower School) was Wooster's second finisher in 44th-place (26:56.7). Junior Isabelle Dwyer (Boardman, Ohio/Boardman), junior Eva Bauman (Tacoma, Wash./Woodrow Wilson), and junior Elise Greenwald (Eldersburg, Md./Century) are Wooster's other runners from last year's scoring contingent that are still competing for the Scots. Current juniors Jessie Breth (Orchard Park, N.Y./Orchard Park) and Julianna Fiori (Pittsburgh, Pa./Upper St. Clair) rounded out last year's top-seven at conference.
All-Ohio Stars: Senior Athena Tharenos (St. Louis, Mo./Mary Institute & St. Louis Country Day School) and junior Dylan Kretchmar (Granville, Ohio/Granville) earned All-Ohio honors by finishing within the top-20 in NCAA Div. III at the All-Ohio Intercollegiate Cross Country Challenge. Tharneos finished 10th among Div. III runners, while Kretchmar was 15th. For Tharenos, the All-Ohio honor marked the second of her cross country career. Tharenos claimed individual cross country title one at Muskingum's Dan Mullen Memorial Invitational on Saturday, September 30. The senior broke the tape at 23:35.9. Kretchmar earned NCAC Athlete of the Week honors following a first-place finish in a dual meet with NCAC rival Denison in mid-September.
Scots Win: Wooster tallied 28 points to hold off host Muskingum for the team championship at the Dan Mullen Memorial Invitational on September 30. The team title marked the first at a meet bigger than a dual meet since the Scots won the 2021 JennaStrong Fall Classic, hosted by Wilmington College.
Welcome Back: Tharenos is a four-year standout at the College, but this is just her second cross country season due to the College not having a season in 2020 with COVID and with Tharenos studying abroad in 2022. Tharenos earned first-team All-NCAC honors with the sixth-place time of 23:38.1 at the 2021 NCAC Championships, and at the time, the sixth-place finish was the program's best since Wieferich was the individual NCAC champion in 2006. Tharenos was one of three Scots to earn All-Ohio honors in 2021 and was a two-time NCAC Athlete of the Week during her debut cross country season. Tharenos helped Wooster to that third-place finish in 2021, which was the program's highest conference cross country showing since 1998.