SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Nobody in Cornell College history has run an 8K faster than what Isaac vanWestrienen did Saturday at the NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Championships.
 
The senior superstar stamped his legacy with a third-place showing – the highest national finish ever by a Cornell male runner – and secured his first cross country all-America medal in his third and final attempt.
 
In title contention virtually the entire race, vanWestrienen crossed the line with a blazing time of 23:39.8 on a 68-degree morning at Milliken Research Park. He crushed his own school record by 18 seconds.
 
The Midwest Conference and Midwest Region champion beat 288 competitors in a decorated field that featured 17 returning all-Americans. VanWestrienen became the seventh cross country all-American in program history, the first since 2018 (Mason Wicker).
 
The highest previous NCAA finish by a Cornell men's runner was Bill Dressel, who placed fourth in 1962.
 
Saturday marked vanWestrienen's fourth all-America performance in the 2025 calendar year, which includes three medals in track & field.
 
VanWestrienen, no doubt, made the biggest jump of any returning competitor at this year's NCAA Championships. He was 272nd last November while stricken by illness.
 
VanWestrienen charged out with the front runners early and momentarily took the lead at the 6K mark among a tight pack of four. In the fourth position with 1000 meters to go, vanWestrienen passed UW-La Crosse's Grant Matthai and nearly caught race favorite Mohammed Bati of Augsburg with a hard kick at the finish.
 
Bati was runner-up for the second consecutive year in 23:39.6, only 0.2 seconds ahead of vanWestrienen. Emmanuel Leblond won the race in 23:35. SUNY Geneseo's Ryan Hagan was fourth, a full 13 seconds behind vanWestrienen.
 
Cornell junior Jake Bach finished 158th in his NCAA debut. The transfer from Division I Wyoming covered the course in 25:43.2.