October 31, 2023
La CROSSE, Wis. – The first North Star Athletic Association postseason championships of the 2023-24 academic year is set for Friday morning. Viterbo (Wis.) will be the host site for the 2023 NSAA Women’s & Men’s Cross-Country Championships.
The conference championship meets will be held at Maple Groves Venues in West Salem, Wis. The women’s 6K race kicks off at 10:30 a.m., with the men’s 8K race to follow at 11:30 a.m.
Maple Grove Venue (W4142 CTH B) in West Salem is comprised of primarily flat terrain with some modest elevation changes. The course will be single lined, flagged, and each 1K and mile will be marked.
The awards ceremony will be held at the R.W. Beggs Gymnasium on the campus of Viterbo (900 Viterbo Drive, La Crosse, Wis.) at approximately 2 p.m. The top 10 runners in each race will receive NSAA All-Conference recognition. The post-race awards will also be announced at the awards ceremony.
The winner of the conference meet in each race will represent the North Star Athletic Association at the 2023 NAIA Cross Country National Championships on Friday, Nov. 17, at Fort Vancouver Historic Site in Vancouver, Wis.
There are also four individual national qualifiers for the NAIA national meet. Runners from the non-winning team and placed in the top 15 will earn a spot to run in the national meet.
Women’s
This year will be the first time that the women’s will be racing in a 6K race, compared to previously as a 5K race.
Viterbo and Dickinson State (N.D.) had alternated the NSAA women’s cross-country title in the past three seasons. The V-Hawks won the team title last season in Dickinson, N.D., with a low score of 32 points, thanks to four runners placing in the top 10.
The Blue Hawks won the NSAA women’s cross-country title in 2021, while VU collected their first North Star conference title in 2020. Both Dakota State (S.D.) and Dickinson State earned a rare tie team title during the 2019 meet held in Forest City, Iowa, hosted by Waldorf (Iowa).
Madison Nelson of Bellevue (Neb.) had won the last two North Star women’s individual titles, winning in 2021 with a time of 19:58.4 and 2022 with a time of 18:27 (both on the 5K racecourse).
Men’s
Dakota State had won the last five North Star Athletic Association men’s cross country team title (NSAA conference meet record for consecutive team titles), breaking the conference meet record low of 19 points in last year’s conference meet.
The Trojans’ streak of consecutive team titles began on the same course held in West Salem, Wis., in 2018.
Dakota State landed seven runners in the top 10 in the conference meet held in Dickinson. Cody Farland of Dakota State was the meet winner in last year’s NSAA conference meet with a time of 26 minutes, 11.10 seconds.