EUGENE, Ore.  – When the Northwest Christian University women's cross country team takes to the course on Saturday at the NAIA National Championships, it will be the culmination of the greatest season in team history and one of the best years on record for any sport at NCU.

Head Coach Heike McNeil refuses to take credit for the success that the Beacons have had this year. “They are an amazing group of young women; there isn't much a coach needs to do. They pretty much do it all on their own. They have high athletic and academic standards, and they help each other rise to meet those standards.”

The team qualification for the championships holds special meaning for seniors Brittany Petersen and Stephanie Hescock, who have run together for four years and combined hold 16 of the top-25 times in school history. They lead a tight-knit group of runners. “You can tell by the way that they interact with each other that they deeply care about each other,” said McNeil. “They pray for each other and watch out for each other. I think this is why a little tiny school like NCU can have a team this good, because of constant encouragement by teammates.”

The Beacons opened the year ranked #17 in the Preseason NAIA Coaches' Poll, an impressive start after ending 2010 in the “receiving votes” category, outside the Top-25. A second-place performance in the season-opening Pier Point Invitational, behind only DI University of Portland, pushed NCU up two spots to no. 15 in the first regular-season poll.

One week later, everything changed. A team victory in the CCC Preview meet in Ashland launched NCU onto the national radar and quickly propelled the Beacons up ten spots, to #5. Aspirations for a team berth in the NAIA race gave way to visions of a CCC championship and more.

Those thoughts were only cemented two weeks later when the Beacons made their way to Salem for the Willamette Invitational. A 20-team field that featured six teams from the NAIA top-25 was a formidable challenge for NCU, but one they faced without trepidation.

On the back of a school-record 17:36 performance from freshman phenom Ally Manley, the Beacons claimed second place in the event, conquering 2010 NAIA national-runner up Biola University in the process. The Willamette performance pushed NCU up to third in the next coaches' poll, and gave Manley an NAIA National Runner of the Week honor to boot.

The toll that a full season of running takes on the human body cannot be understated. Physical ailments can creep up on the best of teams. Running in the adverse weather of the Pacific Northwest opens the door for any number of seasonal sicknesses. The Beacons were no different. Over the following few weeks a number of athletes were affected by a variety of infirmities. Without every runner performing at their peak, a top team can be highly susceptible to a letdown.

This was never more evident than on October 15th at the CU Classic in Portland. With expectations running high, NCU took a fourth-place finish and were quelled by top Cascade Conference rival College of Idaho in their first head-to-head meeting of the season. The result dropped NCU back to seventh in the nation.

The Cascade Collegiate Conference championship followed on November 5th. The Beacons couldn't fulfill their title hopes but did manage to claim the best finish in NCU history, taking third. Petersen and Hescock earned All-CCC honors for their fifth and sixth place finishes respectively.

Holding onto a top-ten position (in ninth), the Beacons were informed the following Monday that they had indeed qualified for their first trip to the NAIA national championship.

And thus, on Saturday, the Beacons will take on the best-of-the-best in the 32nd Annual Women's Cross Country National Championship at 11:45 am at the Fort Vancouver National Historical Site in Vancouver, Washington. Two-time defending champion Cal State San Marcos, currently ranked #2, will look to three-peat but they will face serious competition from top-ranked Azusa Pacific University.

A total of 32 teams and 105 individual qualifiers make up the field which will include 13 runners who have previously earned All-American honors for a top-30 finish at the event. The CCC boasts the 2010 NAIA Women's Cross Country National Championship runner-up in Eastern Oregon's Karlee Coffey, the favorite to take home the individual title this year.

The Beacons have eyes on a “podium finish” as they aim for a top-five result on Saturday and the top three runners are all pushing at the opportunity to garner All-American honors as well. Regardless of the result, however, this has been a special season for a special team.

Coach McNeil said, “With the exception of Ally, none of these girls were great runners in high school, but they have worked very hard and encouraged each other every step of the way. This team exemplifies what it means to step up to the challenges of being student-athletes at NCU. They love and reach out to others on the campus and in the community, they succeed in and out of the classroom, and they are flourishing as runners. I couldn't be more proud of them!”