Senior cross country runner Olivia Pratt raced to her first All-America honors and classmate Erik Peterson earned the accolade for the second consecutive year at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Nov. 21. The championships were held in Louisville, Ky.
"Both of them ran great," head coach
Matt Roe said of Pratt and Peterson. "I'm really excited. They ran just how we hoped they'd run."
In the women's race, Pratt officially finished in 28th with a time of 20:20.3, well within the top-40 standard for All-America honors.
"I thought she could be an All-American," Roe said of Pratt, "but on a course like this on a day like this, with this much competition, 10 seconds can be 25 spots. I thought if she ran really well, she could be in the upper twenties or thirties. So it was an amazing race."
Pratt last competed at the national championships in 2013 when she placed 65th overall to score for the Butler team that would take third in the nation. She was named to the USATFCCC All-Academic Team this past summer and nearly PR'd at the Great Lakes Regional last week to be the second automatic individual qualifier.
"Over-the-moon," Pratt said. "Something like that. It's really exciting – It's a big day."
Pratt said the race got out extremely fast for her liking.
"I got out really in the thick of it, probably 60th place or farther back," she said. "Around 300 meters in, everyone nearly fell over. There was a little stampede and not enough room.
"So for a little while it was me just coming back from that, calming down," she said.
Pratt was around 40th between the third and fourth kilometers of the 6K race.
"I knew every spot mattered, which is a terrifying thing to think about when you're hurting so badly," Pratt said, "but my coaches were at the right spots at the right times, telling me to get around that girl or get around that group… It was one of the hardest things I've ever done."
Pratt said she's just happy that her "best race possible" landed her in the top 40.
"I knew I wanted it. I knew I'd be upset if I didn't have it," she said. "But I also knew, no matter what, I was going to have the best race possible."
In the women's team scoring, New Mexico dominated the field with a stellar score of just 49 points. Colorado followed with 129, and Oregon took third place with 214 points. Notre Dame's Molly Seidel won the individual title, clocking 19:28.6 for first place. She was followed by freshman phenom Allie Ostrander of Boise State, recorded at 19:33.6 finish for 6K.
On the men's side, Peterson was the first individual automatic qualifier from the Great Lakes Regional last Friday, recording a time of 30:05.0 for 12th place in an extremely fast field.
"It got out fast," said Peterson, who, like Pratt, was back toward 60th place at the beginning of the race. "I moved up and sat in 15th through pretty much the rest of the race."
Until the last two minutes, that is, when he was able to reel in a few more competitors.
"It's been quite a ride," Peterson said.
Oregon junior and now ten-time NCAA champion Edward Cheserek took the men's 10K title with a blazing time of 28:45.8. Third-year Patrick Tiernan of Villanova, a BIG EAST rival of Butler's, took second with a time of 29:11.1. Syracuse stole the title from defending champion Colorado, scoring 82 points to the Buffaloes' 91 in a race Roe called "legendary."
"Best NCAA race I've ever seen," he said. "There were a bunch of studs at the front just suffering hard. Exactly how cross country is supposed to be."
Peterson, a Barrington, Ill. native, is somewhat used to the spotlight having previously been honored with numerous awards ranging from Most Outstanding Rookie of the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships in 2012 to All-America at the national championships in 2014 after barely missing a bid the year before.
"But if you look at Erik's career," Roe said, "he's had the best career of any runner in Butler history. And that's saying a lot.
"He's really one of the best athletes that's put on a Butler uniform, and I'm not just talking about track or cross country," he said.
Though Peterson was a two-time All-State runner in cross country at Barrington High School, he was never a state champ or All-American before Butler.
"It was just awesome to see Erik up there running against some of the best guys in the country, and beat most of them," Roe said. "I'm super proud of both (Peterson and Pratt).
"It's going to be a fun ride home for sure," Roe said.
Butler track and field opens its season in early December.
