Grizzly men head to Albuquerque for Mountain Regional

The Montana men's cross country program will travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico on Friday to compete against some of the top teams in the country at the NCAA Mountain Regional.

The 10K race will begin at 12:00 p.m. with 17 teams sending runners to the NM North Golf Course. The distance will be new for Montana and the competition will also increase as the Mountain region features the top two teams nationally and three of the top six in the latest Coaches' Poll.

"It's a great opportunity for our guys after doing well at the Big Sky Conference meet. It's always interesting at the regional meet because the distance goes from 8K to 10K and that changes the strategy of the race and how you run it. Then you add some of the best competition in the entire country to that mix and it's an exciting opportunity for our young men."

Montana is coming off another impressive performance at the Big Sky Championship Meet, finishing 5^th for the second straight year in a very talented conference. The Grizzlies separated themselves from the bottom half of the league with 134 points, nearly 50 clear of 6^th place Idaho State.

It starts at the top where Luke Mest became the first Grizzly since 2011 to earn All-Big Sky honors. Mest finished 9^th in Flagstaff with a time of 24:16.2 at the elevation of Flagstaff, Ariz.

Mest has led Montana at every race this season with a win at the LC State Invitational and top five finishes in every single regular season meet. He will once again look to lead a deep Grizzly team at regionals.

Zachary Giesch and Lane Krautschun each earned top 25 honors at the Big Sky meet. Giesch finished 21^st with a time of 25:02.6 and Lane Krautschun was 23^rd in 25:04.1

The Grizzlies are currently ranked 13^th in the region, according to the Cross Country Ratings Index (XCRI). They are right behind Southern Utah, which finished fourth at the Big Sky Championship, in the regional rankings.

Last year, the Grizzly men finished 15^th at the Mountain Regional, which was the best finish for the program in the last 16 years. They did so with a young group of runners that all returned in 2026, giving them plenty of experience heading into the regional meet this year.

Carson Steckelberg led Montana with a 62^nd place finish in 2025 and Luke Mest was the second Grizzly across the line just a tenth of a second later. Zachary Giesch and Lane Krautschun were the next two Grizzlies across the line.

The same top four from last year's regional meet were also the top four runners for Montana at the Big Sky Championship meet two weeks ago. Henry Sund also returns after competing last year while Keagen Crosby will make his regional debut for Montana.

"It is great to have guys that have run in this race before because it's a big difference going up to 10K," Fraley said. "Having that experience from prior years really gives the guys an idea of what this race is all about and gives them a lot better chance to do well. I think we the way they've been running this season, we are potentially poised to have a better finish than we did last year, which is the goal."

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Players Mentioned

Keagen Crosby

Zachary Giesch

Lane Krautschun

Luke Mest

Carson Steckelberg

Henry Sund

University of Montana Athletics