MONMOUTH, Ore. - Northwest Nazarene men's cross country made program history on Saturday at the NCAA West Regional meet, with the team and an individual each tying the highest finishes in the Nighthawks' 25-year history in Division II.

As a group, the Nighthawks placed fifth with 141 points, equaling their regional ranking coming into the meet. Chico State won the regional with 75 points, followed by Western Washington at 88, Cal Poly Pomona at 97, and Alaska Anchorage at 126.

Grady Mylander led the efforts with an incredible race, holding off a pair of Alaska Anchorage runners to take third. Mylander's time was 29:35.36, just one second ahead of the fourth-place finisher and three seconds in front of fifth. By being the top finisher not on an automatically qualifying team, Mylander grabs one of the two automatic qualifying individual bids to the NCAA Championships race in two weeks in Wisconsin. 

Brody Kemble and Ian Stockett both also secured top 15 finishes, with Kemble taking 11th at 30:08.87 and Stockett 12th at 30:10.21. Mylander, Kemble, and Stockett all earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors via their top-25 finishes at the regionals. 

Asher Ingram was next for NNU, placing 43rd with a time of 31:13.26. Micah Chi took the fifth and final counting spot for the Nighthawks, finishing 72nd with a time of 31:57.87. 

NNU's finish tied the 2011 squad for the best in program history. Mylander's third-place finish also tied an individual from that 2011 squad for the top in program history, when Barak Watson was third overall. This is the first time in program history that NNU has had three runners finish in the top 25 of the men's regional race.

The top three teams automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships race. Ten additional squads will be selected to the championships as at-large bids, so it is possible that NNU could sneak into one of those spots when the selections are revealed via a press release on NCAA.com on Monday, November 10th at roughly 3:00 p.m. Mountain time. 

The NCAA Championships race will take place on November 22nd in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin-Parkside hosts the 10K race at the Wayne E. Dannehl National XC Course.