COSTA MESA --  The Vanguard Cross Country program is flying out to Washington for the NAIA Championships this Friday, as Kate Baranski and Evan Hernandez bear the torch for the Blue and Gold at the event in 2023.  The Lions have had at least one member from either the men's or the women's team compete at the NAIA Championships since 2002, with the women on a seven-year streak and the men on a 14-year stretch.  Baranski qualified in her first cross country season and Hernandez is now 3-for-3 in making the NAIA race.
 
Hernandez missed the first event of the season but quickly slashed through the competition, posting only one time over 25 minutes and setting a career-best mark of 24:28.5 at the Mustang Challenge.  His best finishes have been a fifth place result at the UC Riverside Invitational and at the Golden State Athletic Conference Championships, the third year in a row he has been an all-conference runner.  He has averaged about 24.5 minutes to finish a race this season, which is a career-best, and his three top-10 finishes equal his mark from the 2021 season.  Hernandez is hoping to beat his 2021 pace on this same course, as he recorded a time of 26:48 and finished 104th that day.
 
Baranski might have missed two years of cross country by playing soccer, but her work on the pitch kept her running and she has not missed a beat in her first collegiate cross country season.  She had three races under 20 minutes and two sub-18 minute tallies, including her best time of 18:24.7 at the Titan Invitational.  She won the Vanguard Invitational to start the campaign and had three other finishes inside the top 25, including three events that had 200 runners.  She placed eighth at the GSAC Championships to finish as an all-conference runner in her first attempt and is hovering around a 20-minute average to complete a race on the season.
 
The Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is the location of the race this year after it held in Tallahassee, Florida, last year.  The fort was built in 1825 and has had quite a history, but it burned down in 1866.  The National Park Service started excavating and restoring the area in 1947 and the site has since become a park that mixes recreation with history.  The park developed a great cross country reputation, highligted by some USA national time trials in 2001.  The NAIA first arrived in 2009 and this will be the eighth time that the NAIA Championships will be held on the course.  The 2k loop is mostly on grass, has plenty of undulation, and the finicky Washington weather will always keep the participants guessing on how course conditions will be on race day.    
 
Megan Williams has the best time on the course in VU history on the women's side, as she finished 24th in 2010 with a time of 18:24.  On the men's side, the best performance stands with Cameron Barela, who had a 12th-place finish in a time of 24:51 in 2012.