KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Indiana Wesleyan took the No. 1 spot for the final time in 2023 in the final NAIA Men’s Cross Country Top 25 Rating of the season. The Wildcats grabbed 18, first-place votes. Milligan (Tenn.) finished in the No. 2 slot while The Master’s (Calif.), Saint Mary (Kan.) and Eastern Oregon rounded out the top five. Carroll (Mont.) made the biggest jump of the week, up seven spots to No. 18. Olivet Nazarene (Ill.) also joined the Top 25 this week after a runner-up finish at the Chicagoland Championship meet.

Rating Methodology:

• The Top 25 was voted upon by a panel of head coaches representing each of the conferences, and Unaffiliated Groupings.
• The Top 25 is determined by a points system based on how each voter ranks the best teams. A team receives 30 points for each first-place vote, 29 for second-place and so on through the list.
• The highest and lowest ranking for each team (a non-rating is considered a low ratings) is removed and the team’s ranking will be recalculated with an additional point added to each team for every ballot (including discounted ballots) that the teams appears on.
• Teams that receive only one point in the ballot are not considered “receiving votes”
• For the complete Top 25 calendar, click HERE.

Dropped from Top 25: Indiana East

Others Receiving Votes: Benedictine (Kan.) 97, Embry-Riddle (Ariz.) 92, Rio Grande (Ohio) 68, Southern Oregon 53, Texas Wesleyan 36, Indiana East 31, Cornerstone (Mich.) 21, Marian (Ind.) 21, Oregon Tech 10, Campbellsville (Ky.) 5, Southeastern (Fla.) 4, William Carey (Miss.) 3, Tabor (Kan.) 3.