NEWS: Colorado Christian's Jon Poag Elevated to Athletic Director, Evan Verbal to Take Over as Head Coach

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Back in May, Colorado Christian announced that head coach Jon Poag has been elevated to an Athletic Director role at the university. The former head track and cross country coach will now hand off his duties to Evan Verbal who will oversee both men's and women's programs.

Since being hired as CCU's head coach in 2015, Poag has transformed the Cougar men into a perennial top-10 team at the Division Two level. Despite competing in the ultra-stacked Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and South Central region, the Cougars have emerged as a mainstay atop of the D2 cross country rankings.

Under Poag, the CCU men earned their first-ever national meet berth in 2019. The women's team followed suit with their first-ever national meet qualification in 2021. Both teams have been able to advance to the NCAA XC Championships each year since then.

In 2022, the Colorado Christian men threw down a monster 3rd place podium finish at the national meet while the women secured a 10th place result. The Cougar men have finished in the top-10 of the national meet over the last three years.

The rise of the CCU men has no doubt been a collective effort. However, the lineups constructed by Poag over the years have seemingly been centered around a handful of top-tier low-sticks who have maximized their scoring output. That, in turn, has led to the rise of All-American standouts such as Matthew Storer, Josh Pierantoni, Trent Cochran and Ryder Searle.

Photo via David Nguyen

The recent rise of the Colorado Christian women can, in large part, be attributed to a handful of excellent recruiting classes going into the new decade. Their lineups have still featured great low-sticks (think Paige Tack), but have also been more balanced compared to their male counterparts.

Now taking over the reigns of the program is Evan Verbal, a 2018 graduate from CCU who earned numerous Division Two All-American honors during his time with the Cougars. He previously served as the head coach at Regis University and was an assistant coach with Colorado Christian from 2019 through 2022.

Verbal will now take over a men's cross country team that is looking to capitalize on the return of nearly all of their 2023 national meet members who placed 8th as a team at last year's NCAA XC Championships. The women's team will return vital pieces from last year's 16th place national meet squad, but they will also need to overcome the loss of veteran scorer Paige Tack and a couple of others.