Liberty sweeps 2024 CUSA cross country titles

For the first time since 2012, Liberty University swept the men’s and women’s cross country conference titles, Saturday morning at Choccolocco Park in Oxford, Ala. The Lady Flames enjoyed the largest margin of victory (66 points) in CUSA Cross Country Championships history, while the Flames pulled out their first conference championship in 11 years.

Led by the duo of Adelyn Fairley (second place) and Allie Zealand (third), Liberty put seven runners inside the top 14 women’s 6K finishers. As a result, the Lady Flames notched a dominating 28-94 victory over defending champion Middle Tennessee. It marked Liberty’s first conference crown since 2021 (ASUN).

The Liberty men’s squad halted a run of 10 consecutive runner-up finishes spanning three conferences (Big South, ASUN and CUSA), claiming its first title since the 2013 Big South Championship. Paced by Tristian Merchant (third place), six Flames crossed the line within the top 20 finishers as Liberty edged defending champion Middle Tennessee, 46-48.

Liberty took home a good amount of individual hardware, as Adelyn Fairley was honored as CUSA Women’s Outstanding Senior and Isaac Wendland (men’s) and Heather Zealand (women’s) swept the CUSA Coach of the Year trophies.

Seven Lady Flames earned All-CUSA honors, including first team honorees Fairley, Zealand and Isabela Ross. Teammates Marie Hostetler, Ava Gordon, Molly Lashley and Katrina Schlenker all made the second team all-conference squad.

On the men’s side, two Flames apiece made the first team (Merchant and Nicholas Kiprotich), second team (Nathan Moore and Jack Cottrell) and third team (Kyle Harkabus and Andrew Schultz) all-CUSA units.

Read the complete story on the Liberty Athletics website.