Vikings maintain foothold in USTFCCCA D2 national coaches' poll after winning GNAC titles...

NEW ORLEANS--After sweeping the men's and women's titles last Saturday at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship meet at Bellingham's Sudden Valley Golf Course, the Western Washington men's and women's cross country teams (Paul Merca photo) are ranked ninth and fourteenth respectively, in the latest USTFCCCA Division II national coaches poll released Wednesday.

Thanks to the front-running of conference champion Jeret Gillingham, and the Vikings' ability to pack all five scorers in the top eleven places, Western cruised to an easy 32-73 victory over second place Northwest Nazarene.

The nation's top five men's teams are in order: Wingate, Colorado School of Mines, West Texas A&M, Grand Valley State, and Adams State.

The Vikings are the only men's team from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference ranked in the national top 30.

Despite the 1-2 finish by Alaska-Fairbanks' senior standouts Kendall Kramer and Rosie Fordham, along with a 3-4 performance by Seattle Pacific's Annika Esvelt and Maya Ewing, the Vikings got the three-peat, scoring 48 points to second place Alaska Fairbanks' 74.

With All-American Ashley Reeck leading the way for Western in sixth place, the Vikings packed their five scorers in a span of 20 seconds, with their fifth runner finishing twelfth. In the process, the Vikings avenged a loss to the Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks from two weeks ago at the Lewis Crossover.

The nation's top five women's teams are in order: Adams State, Grand Valley State, CSU Pueblo, Colorado School of Mines, and Lewis.

Alaska Fairbanks is the only other GNAC school in the national top 30, coming in at number 21.

The NCAA West Regional meet is scheduled for next Saturday in Billings, Montana at Amend Park.

The USTFCCCA men's release is available here, while the women's release is available here.

NOTE: The USTFCCCA and the sports information office of Western Washington University contributed to this report.

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