Kennedy, Luckoski earn a spot in the NAIA National Championship meet

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced its Men's Cross Country National Championship qualifiers on Tuesday, and the Loyola Wolf Pack will send two individuals to compete at the meet. Seniors Jacob Kennedy and Jace Luckoski finished in sixth and eighth place, respectively, at the SSAC Championship last week, putting them in good position to get an individual bid to the national championship. 
 

Kennedy ran an eight-kilometer time of 25:30.1 at the conference meet last Friday, while Luckoski was two spots behind his teammate at 25:40.5. 
 

The 71st annual NAIA Men's Cross Country National Championship will be held on Friday, Nov. 20, at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Washington. The 8,000-meter race will begin at 12:30 p.m. CT. 
 

It's Kennedy's and Luckoski's first time running at the national championship, and they are the first Wolf Pack student-athletes to compete in the meet since Drake Breland did in 2024. 
 

The two both have the Top 2 times in the program's history for an 8K race, and both came at the UAH Chargers XC Invitational in October. Kennedy owns the program record with a time of 25:24.9, while Luckoski's personal best is 25:34.8. Luckoski did set the program record for a 5,000-meter race this season, finishing as the top NAIA runner at the Battle for New Orleans with a time of 15:27.3. Only Tulane, South Alabama, and LSU runners finished ahead of him in the race. 
 

Luckoski has two individual wins this season, too. He won the 8K Belhaven Invitational with a time of 26:24.8 and the four-mile New Orleans Dirt Classic with a time of 20:46.9. Kennedy placed sixth at the Belhaven meet with a time of 27:18.3, as he improved his time by nearly two minutes to break the program record three weeks later. He also placed second at the New Orleans Dirt Classic with a time of 21:08.8. 
 

The best performance by a Wolf Pack men's cross country student-athlete at the NAIA Men's Cross Country National Championship came from Walter Ramsey in 2021 with a time of 25:48. 
 

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