LOUISVILLE, Ky. — With a little more than a mile to go in Saturday’s NCAA cross country championships, as excited fans scrambled along the course amid an electric and chaotic atmosphere, an announcer came over the public address system to proclaim the teams ranking near the top.

Northern Arizona. Portland. BYU.

“And Cinderella Colorado State University!”

On the trails, roads and hills around Fort Collins, Colorado State had been quietly preparing for this moment all season. Fifth-year senior Jerrell Mock was running just off the lead pack of some of the best runners in the nation, and trailing not far behind were the four other men poised to deliver one of the greatest athletic performances in school history. CSU sat in fourth place at 8,000 meters in the 10K race.

But the clock struck midnight before the finish line could come.

Mock, having raced with the top 10 runners throughout the event, crumbled in the closing 1,500 meters, falling to 169th place and failing to score for his team. His legs locked in pain, he grimaced down the homestretch as scores of runners passed him. He collapsed at the finish.

It was a brutal — and uncharacteristic — end to an otherwise sterling cross country career. The Rams, ranked eighth in the coaches poll coming in, finished in 9th with 318 points, one place behind rival Colorado’s 294 points, but ahead of the three other Mountain West teams there. In cross country, the lowest team score wins.

“It was bittersweet,” coach Art Siemers said outside the team tent afterward. “We had a dream season this year. We won our first Mountain West title in school history. We just had a really consistent year. … This year was really special. And the guys showed it today. We want to be a top 10 program in the country year-in and year-out. We really felt we could podium … At the end of the day, we were still top 10, even without our No. 1 guy.”

Their placing speaks to how deep the program is. It was the team’s third-best performance in its history and the best since 1978. It is one of 10 top-10 performances in any sport in Rams history. Four other CSU teams have had better performances in school history than this squad.

CSU was led by Cole Rockhold (29 minutes, 54.1 seconds) in 32nd place; Grant Fischer (30:16.2) in 58th; Eric Hamer (30:35.1) in 90th; Wayde Hall (30:36.6) in 93rd; Carson Hume (30:49.4) in 111th; Mock (31:18.1) in 169th; and Trent Powell (31:22.5) in 175th. All except Mock improved their places.

“We’re moving in the right direction as a program on the men’s side, where the guys are believing in themselves, the training and coming together as a unit,” said Siemers, now in his sixth year as a coach.

Siemers has accomplished this through effective recruiting, searching for runners who, yes, are talented, but who prioritize the team over their personal success.

“The culture is very supportive,” Siemers said. “It’s easier to get better when your team supports you. We try to treat everyone equally. Sometimes the last guy on our team, after three years of hard work, is an All-American or lining up at a championship. That’s the culture we’re trying to have.”

Siemers isn’t second-guessing Mock’s tactics, either. Mock tends to go out hard during races and he’s won his two conference championships with that approach. Ultimately, it was a rare bad day in a career filled with accomplishment.

“Guys train with him and believe they’re going to become very good runners because they’re training with Jerrell Mock,” Siemers said. “He’s put a great stamp on our program. He’s do some magical things in track. He’ll pick himself up.”

Mock, for his part, when asked about his performance, briefly answered before pivoting to talking about the team.

“I’ve never really experienced that in a race before,” Mock said. “I wanted to be in good position off the start and just kind of ran out of gas. I made some hard moves just to stay with that lead pack because I didn’t want to get caught in the wind.

“I’m sorry if I let them down, but they ran incredible. I’m super proud of them.”

Ultimately, the team knows and believes it should be racing with some of the most storied programs in collegiate running history: Stanford, Oregon, Colorado.

“We’re not going to step back,” Siemers said. “We’re going to train and next year we’re going to try to podium again. We’re going to keep trying until we get it.”