Cross-country progress is often measured in seconds, but for K-State on a rainy Halloween morning, it showed up in the standings.
Competing on the same course where they raced two weeks earlier at the Weis-Crockett Invitational, K-State opened the postseason with its best Big 12 championship finish in three years in Stillwater. The men’s team finished 10th with 262 points, while the women placed 15th with 362 points in a competition where the team with the lowest points won.
The result marked the program’s best result since a ninth-place finish in 2023, continuing an upward trend for the team in the first season under assistant coach Brent Ewing.
Sophomore Max Larson led the Wildcats in the 8k race, crossing the finish line in 24:30:4 to place 45th overall. Junior Jackson Esquibel followed in 53rd at 24:41:6 while junior Brock Olsen finished 64th in 24:59:5 as all three runners broke the 25-minute mark.
“The men ran really tough today, I thought,” Ewing said. “We had a goal of trying to see if we could crack into top seven, the top eight, and we fell just short of that by a few points. But if you look at what the men did two weeks ago when they were here, compared to today, four out of six of our guys ran faster individual marks.”
Sophomores Logan Beckman and Dylan Plath provided additional scoring depth, finishing 68th and 71st, respectively, before Vance Krudwig rounded out the Wildcats’ runners in 88th place.
While the men produced K-State’s best result of the day, the women leaned on a strong young core.
Freshman Joyce Kiptabut paced the Wildcats with a 52nd-place finish in the 6k race, posting a time of 21:33:8. She was the only K-State runner to finish under 22 minutes and narrowly missed a top-50 overall conference placement.
Junior Christine Jerono, running her first conference championship race in two years, finished 78th in 22:18:2. Freshman McKenna Montgomery placed 88th in 22:29:7, while sophomore Payton Fink finished close behind in 90th at 22:32:3.
Colorado won the men’s Big 12 title, and BYU took the women’s. Colorado narrowly defeated host squad Oklahoma State, 36-38, to capture the men’s crown while BYU won its fourth consecutive title with 56 points to continue its recent dominance.
For the ‘Cats, Saturday’s result was less about winning a trophy and more about momentum. The team improved times from its earlier performance at the same course and showed visible progress heading into the next phase of NCAA championship season.
K-State concludes its 2026-27 cross-country season Nov. 13 at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Ames, Iowa, where the ‘Cats look to continue their postseason push onto a bigger stage.
