STILLWATER – Oklahoma State men’s cross country retained its spot atop the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Coaches’ Poll, the organization announced Tuesday.
The Cowboys enter the regular season as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country in both the USTFCCCA and FloTrack rankings following an undefeated 2023 season that ended with the program's fifth national championship at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Virginia. OSU returns four of its five All-Americans from last year's squad and has four of the top eight returning finishers from the 2023 NCAA Championships in Denis Kipngetich (4th at NCAAs), Brian Musau (8th), Fouad Messaoudi (10th) and Victor Shitsama (12th).
In FloTrack’s individual rankings, the Cowboys have five men ranked inside the top-14 overall and six in the top 40:
Kipngetich – No. 3
Musau – No. 7
Ryan Schoppe – No. 8
Messaoudi – No. 13
Shitsama – No. 14
Adisu Guadie – No. 37
Will Muirhead – No. 63
On the women’s side, the Cowgirls appear at No. 16/20 in the USTFCCCA and FloTrack team rankings heading into the regular season. The OSU women are coming off back-to-back trophies at the NCAA Championships with a fourth-place team finish in 2022 and a third-place finish last season.
Both the Cowboys and Cowgirls open their regular seasons next weekend at the 86th annual Cowboy Jamboree on September 28 in Stillwater. In each of the previous three seasons, the Cowboys and Cowgirls have swept the individual victories with a different winner each time (Isai Rodriguez and Taylor Roe in 2021, Alex Maier and Natalie Cook in 2022 and Billah Jepkirui and Denis Kipngetich in 2023).
The men’s race will feature No. 1 OSU, No. 8 New Mexico and No. 22 Oregon along with several other D1 schools and will include seven of the top 21 ranked men in the FloTrack rankings. Meanwhile, the 16th-ranked Cowgirls will host a field that includes No. 22 New Mexico.
For more information on the Cowboys and Cowgirls, continue to check back with okstate.com.
