Jesuit's women's and men's cross country teams have qualified to compete at the prestigious Nike Cross Nationals Championships.
The meet will be held at Portland's Glendoveer Golf Course on Saturday, December 7 with the men's race beginning at 10:05 a.m. and women racing at 11:35 a.m.
Nike Cross Nationals is the only high school team championship event held annually. This event is decided on the course with qualification based on team performances at one of 9 regional meets held in November.
Student-athletes from all 50 states and more than 1,500 high schools participate in the regional meets, but ultimately, the top 22 men's teams and 22 women's teams travel to Nationals to "lay it all on the course."
Running under their club team name Stumptown XC, Jesuit competed on Nov 16 in Boise, Idaho in the hopes of qualifying for the national meet.
The men from Stumptown XC placed second out of a meet with 120 schools represented (25 teams in their championship race), which earned the Jesuit men their ticket to nationals.
The women's team had a longer wait. The Stumptown women placed third in the Nike Cross Regional meet in Boise. That was not an automatic berth to the national meet. It put them in the pool to be selected as an "at large" team. The Northwest region is the most competitive and deepest region in the country.
These Jesuit women had to wait three weeks to find out their fate. Team member and JHS sophomore Chloe Foerster qualified as an individual, so the team continued to train with Foerster in the hope that they would all get to run with her at Glendoveer.
And Saturday night, the call came. The Stumptown ladies would ALL be competing at Nationals.
It is a rare feat for a school to have both their men's and women's team competing in the same Nike Cross Nationals Championship meet.
Congratulations to our Jesuit women and men's cross country teams! We look forward to seeing you compete on December 7.
Go Crusaders!