2013 NCAA Division II Men's Cross Country National Championship Results

Spokane, WA – Signing off on an impressive collegiate cross country debut season, Nicolas Rifflard pushed himself into the Top 60 runners of a NCAA Division II National Championship race that featured more than 245 of the best athletes from around the country. Rifflard crossed the finish line in 57th place, sporting a new season best time of 31:35.9 on the 10k Plantes Ferry Sports Complex.

"I'm very proud of how Nicolas ran today," associate head coach Torrey Olson said. "It wasn't easy for him, but he dug in and ran over 50 seconds faster than Regionals on the same course. He got to taste what it's like at NCAAs and I'm excited for him to bring that experience back to San Francisco."

Throughout the race, Rifflard maintained a steady pace as he was mixing it up in the 56-58 place range midway through. While others who had a relatively similar split to the Paris, France native seemed to fall 10 to even 30 spots down the stretch, Rifflard actually moved up from 58th to 57th by the time he crossed the finish line. Though he was 17 spots shy of All-American status, it was still a memorable performance.

Rifflard's 57th place end result made him the ninth highest finisher from the West Region, a six-spot improvement from her performance at the NCAA DII West Regional Championships in early November. He was also more than 40 spots higher than the two other individual qualifiers from the West Region, UC San Diego's Tareq Alwafai (100th, 32:15.2) and San Francisco State's Bruk Assefa (121st, 32:33.4). Rifflard's resulting 31:35.9 time was more than 50 seconds lower than his time two weeks ago at Regionals.

The 10k race itself was won by Tabor Stevens of Adams State. He turned a time of 29:50.1 that was over 11 seconds ahead of the next closest runner. For the second consecutive year, the team title overwhelmingly went to Adams State by a 50-point margin in front of second place Grand Valley State.

Although the NCAA National Championship meet officially concludes the 2013 ART U Cross Country season, all Urban Knights distance athletes will resume competition with the arrival of the indoor track & field season on Dec. 7 at Adams State.