KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Two Montana Tech men's cross country runners will have the opportunity to race for a national title.

Orediggers juniors Ben Zerr and Derek Schultz earned individual berths in the NAIA Championship field, the NAIA national office announced Monday evening. They will race for top honors in the country Friday, Nov. 22 at 9:30 a.m. MST on Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo. The Montana Tech women, fresh off the first Frontier Conference title in program history, earned an automatic team bid to the title meet; they'll race at 10:30 a.m. that same day.

Zerr, a Kailua, Hawaii native, enjoyed a career day at the Frontier Conference championship meet last Wednesday in Billings. He raced to a fourth-place finish and his first-career all-conference honor.

Schultz, from Mountain Home, Idaho, took 10th at the conference meet to help the Diggers to a third-place team result.

RELATED: Qualifiers for the 2024 NAIA Men's Cross Country National Championship

It will be the second national championship race for both men. The pair competed as part of the Oredigger team at the 2023 NAIA championships. Schultz finished 130th and Zerr 202nd to help Tech to a 25th-place team finish.

Four Frontier Conference programs will take part in the meet. Carroll College and Rocky Mountain College both qualified for the meet as teams, and MSU-Northern's James Stensland-Plymale joins Schultz and Zerr as an individual qualifier.

Visit Montana Tech athletics' home online, GoDiggers.com, anytime for up-to-the-minute news and coverage of the Orediggers. Give Montana Tech athletics a like on Facebook, and follow the Orediggers on X at @MTechDiggers.