For the second time in her career, Karis Frankian has been named an NAIA All-American.

CHAROLTTE, North Carolina – Karis Frankian placed fifth out of 321 runners at 17:37 while younger sister Abigail Frankian was close behind at eleventh-place after clocking a time of 17:51 in the women’s 5k at the 2015 NAIA Cross Country National Championships.

Based on their performances, the Frankian sisters were pegged as NAIA All-Americans as the top 30 finishers walk away with the aforementioned honors.  Notably, Karis Frankian is the first Lady Mustang in TMC program history to earn NAIA All-American honors on three separate occasions (’15, ’14, ’12).

Collectively, the 8th-ranked Lady Mustangs finished seventh out of a field of 35 teams with a cumulative time of 1:49.3 and 263 points.  The Lady Mustangs’ seventh-place finish is the highest placing a TMC cross country team has ever earned at the NAIA National Championship.

“There are different things that we talk about going into our races, but entering into this race we talked about how God is more concerned about where our hearts are and how we rely on him instead of our team’s overall finish,” commented TMC head coach Zach Schroeder.  “It’s exciting to me to see the effort our athletes put and how the Lord blessed us with two NAIA-All Americans.”

Attesting to the strength of the Golden State Athletic Conference, Biola University placed third overall with a collective time of 1:47.8 and 170.  Biola’s Kellian Hunt placed first overall at 17:16. Westmont College finished in 10th place with 344 points.

Now, the Lady Mustangs will take a few weeks off and focus their efforts on the approaching 2016 track season.