Bacone's Jackson Thomas wins individual title

Published By Alan Grosbach, Manager of Communications and Sports Information on November 19th, 2016

ELSAH, Ill. – (Results) Southern Oregon claimed its second national championship in program history Saturday at the 61st annual NAIA Men’s Cross Country National Championship. The event was held at North Farm Cross Country Course in Elsah, Ill. The Raiders, who entered the national championship ranked No. 3 in the final regular-season coaches’ poll, accumulated 122 total points to best the 37-team.

Connor Cushman was the lead finisher for Southern Oregon, taking 16th-place in a time of 24:59.80 to earn All-America honors. The West Linn, Ore., native claimed 189th place at the 2015 championships. Cushman was the lone Raider to finish among the top 30.

“We knew coming in that it was going to be a challenging course, and certainly the wind played a little into it today,” said Grier Gatlin, Southern Oregon head coach. “We had a race plan, and as cliché as it sounds, we executed that plan. What won it for us in the end was the way we ran the last 1,000-meters.”

Overall, Southern Oregon ran a combined time 8-kilometer time of 2:06:44.90 – an average of 25:20.98 per runner.