November 20, 2004

EAU CLAIRE, WIS. . . . Wartburg College seniors Missy Buttry (Shenandoah, Iowa/Shenandoah) and Josh Moen (Fairbank, Iowa/Wapsie Valley) repeated as the NCAA Division III national cross country Champions, leading a group of four Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) runners that earned All-American honors at the 2004 NCAA National Championship hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax, Wis. Last year, Buttry and Moen made NCAA Division III history becoming the first men’s and women’s individual Champions from the same school in the same year.

Buttry, who finished the 6,000-meter race in 20:22.0, became the first female runner in any Division to win three cross country National Championships. She is also the first runner in any Division, male or female, to win three consecutive cross country titles and is just the fourth runner in any Division to win three cross country titles (along with three Division I men’s runners that accomplished the feat in non-consecutive years). Buttry finished 24.5 seconds ahead of runner-up Liz Woodworth of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and became the second Iowa Conference runner to earn All-American honors four times (Wartburg’s Robyn Olson 1991-94).

Moen, who finished the 8,000-meter race in 24:28.7, is the first Division III men’s runner to win consecutive National Championship since 1988-89 when David Terronez of Augustana (Ill.) College won consecutive titles. Moen, Terronez and Carleton’s Dale Kramer (1976-77) are the only Division III men’s runners to win two National Championships. Moen finished 13.1 seconds ahead of runner-up Neal Holtschulte of Williams (Mass.) College.

Along with Buttry and Moen’s titles, Central College senior Beth Cunningham (Davenport, Iowa/Central) and Luther College junior Emily Lynch (Delano, Minn./Watertown-Mayer) earned All-American honors awarded to the top-35 finishers. Cunningham, the first Central cross country All-American since 1981, finished 20th in a time of 22:15.9. Lynch, the first Luther cross country All-American since 2001, finished 35th in a time of 22:24.1.

In the team standings, Luther’s women finished seventh with 233 points and Wartburg’s women finished 17th with 410 points. Williams (Mass.) won the women’s team Championship with 110 points. On the men’s side, Wartburg finished 14th with 331 points. Calvin College won its second straight men’s team Championship with 107 points.

In addition to the runners that ran with their team (Wartburg men and women, Luther women), three individual’s from IIAC schools qualified – Cunningham, and Loras seniors Jason Flogel (LaMotte, Iowa/Marquette) and Dan Winder (Waterloo, Iowa/West). Flogel finished 75th in 25:44.1 and Winder finished 176th in 26:53.8. There were 215 total runners each in the men’s and women’s race.

Complete Championship results - Men/Women

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