Rocky Mountain Wins Frontier Conference Men’s Title; Sarsland Takes Individual Crown

November 6, 2026

BILLINGS, Mont. - Rocky Mountain placed five runners in the top 13 to win the men’s 8-kilometer title with 39 points at the Frontier Conference Cross Country Championships on Friday, Nov. 6, at Amend Park. It was the second straight year that the Battlin' Bears claimed the team title and will represent the league at the NAIA National Championships on Friday, Nov. 20.

Dickinson State (N.D.) Caleb Sarsland won the individual championship in 24 minutes, 36.7 seconds.

Sarsland averaged 4:57.2 per mile and finished 35.4 seconds ahead of Providence (Mont.) Kyler Harris, who took second in 25:12.1. John Spinti led Rocky Mountain with a third-place finish in 25:17.2. Carroll (Mont.) teammates Conrad Schruth and Jack Jensen completed the top five, finishing in 25:20.8 and 25:26.5, respectively.

Rocky Mountain’s scoring group finished within 29.7 seconds of one another, giving the champion a 26-point advantage over runner-up Bellevue. Zach Zwiesler placed sixth in 25:29.8 and Matthew Conrad followed in seventh at 25:33.0. Caleb Tomac added a 10th-place finish in 25:38.0 before Ashtyn Rask completed the scoring in 13th at 25:46.9. Rocky Mountain posted a combined scoring time of 2:07:44.

Bellevue scored 65 points behind consecutive finishes from freshmen Ben Schlegelmilch and David Felipe Mejia, who placed eighth in 25:35.2 and ninth in 25:35.6. Jack Brown finished 11th in 25:41.1, while Xavier Mallow took 16th in 26:04.7. Ronald Kipyegon closed Bellevue’s scoring group in 21st at 26:50.9.

Carroll finished third with 81 points. Behind Schruth and Jensen, Oliver Morris placed 12th in 25:43.8, Colter Anderson took 29th in 27:13.8 and Eli Highness finished 31st in 27:18.1. Montana Tech was fourth with 98 points, led by Tyler Inabnit’s 14th-place finish in 25:48.4. Michael Marlow, Derek Schultz and Bryon Fanning finished 18th through 20th, respectively, and Layne Niemeyer completed Tech’s scoring in 27th at 27:07.1.

Dakota State placed fifth with 165 points, paced by TayShaun Cudmore in 22nd at 26:51.2. Dickinson St. finished sixth with 176 points. Bismarck State took seventh with 183 behind Xavier Bell’s 23rd-place finish in 26:54.2. Kole Albers led Valley City State in 17th at 26:12.5 as the team finished eighth with 208 points.

Montana Western finished ninth with 250 points, led by Ryker Zuffelato in 49th at 27:51.6. Providence was 10th with 268 points, while MSU-Northern placed 11th with 298. Donovan Archambault was Northern’s first finisher, taking 53rd in 28:01.7. The race had 96 finishers.

Rocky Mountain along with four Frontier Conference individual national qualifiers - Sarsland, Harris, Schruth, and Jensen - will run at the national meet at Fort Vancouver Historical Site in Vancouver, Wash., on Friday, Nov. 20.