photo by: Bailey Thompson/Kansas Athletics

Tori Wingrove and Olivia Krueger during the Bob Timmons Classic at Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023.

The upcoming cross-country season for Kansas will have a lot of familiarity, as only a handful of seniors depart from KU’s men’s and women’s teams.

The Jayhawks’ top returners are seniors Peter Walsdorf and Kenadi Krueger, who both were the second-fastest Jayhawks running in the Big 12 championship and the NCAA regional championship. Eight of KU’s top 10 men’s runners from the Big 12 Championship will be back this year, and seven of the top 10 women’s runners are returning.

This year’s team includes 22 men and 23 women. KU’s women’s team includes many underclassmen, with six freshmen and eight sophomores. The men’s team features six freshmen, six sophomores, eight juniors, one senior and one graduate student.

Last year

The 2023 cross-country season concluded with KU sending two runners to the NCAA Championships after a sixth-place finish in the conference for both the men’s and women’s teams, as well as a ninth-place finish for the men in the NCAA Regional Championships and a 12th-place finish for the women.

Both Jayhawks to make it to the NCAA Championships graduated and finished their NCAA cross-country careers. Lona Latema represented KU in the women’s race and placed 62nd, a major improvement from her 2021 NCAA Championship run where she finished 101st. On the men’s side, Chandler Gibbens placed 77th in his first NCAA Championship run.

Around the conference

Oklahoma State and BYU dominated the Big 12 Championships last year, with the Cowboys winning the men’s 8,000-meter run and the Cougars winning the women’s 6,000-meter run. Each school took second place in the race it did not win.

On the men’s side, the Cowboys had their top five runners — only one of whom didn’t return for the 2024 season — all finish inside the top 10 in the race for a winning score of 25. Their latter two runners placed inside the top-20.

Last year’s top men’s runner, sophomore Brian Musau, will return to Oklahoma State after a successful track and field season in which he set a school record. The Cowboys did lose their seniors Taylor Roe, who won the women’s Big 12 championship, and Molly Born, who placed fifth in the championship.

BYU, which won the women’s Big 12 championship, lost two of its top-four runners. Iowa State, the fourth team in the men’s category and third in the women’s, return four of their top-five men and two of their top-five women.

Local ties

KU’s incoming freshman class includes two familiar faces in Lawrence. Ryan Whittlesey and Blake Wohler are from Free State High School. Wohler led his team in the 6A state championship with a 16 minute, 6.30 second 5000-meter run, which was 13th in the state. Whittlesey had the second-best run on the team with a time of 16:29.40 for 30th.

Whittlesey joins two other family members on the team: his older sister Samantha, a junior, and his father, assistant coach Michael Whittlesey.

The Jayhawks recruited another area local in Eudora’s Sydney Owens. She capped off her high school cross-country career with a first-place finish in the 4A state championship with a time of 18:47.90.