In the final race of his stellar debut collegiate cross country campaign, 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 10k season best time of 31:35.9.
Rifflard was 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.
