It wasn’t the ending the Cyclones were looking for.

After being ranked in the top 25 in the nation during the regular season and making its first trip to Nationals since 1997, the ISU men’s cross country team finished Monday’s NCAA Championship in a tie for 30th – good for last place.

“To get there and not perform as well as we wanted was disappointing for us,” said senior Jayden Russ. “We think we were good enough to be a top-15 team in the nation, and I definitely think we have the athletes to do that, but it just didn’t happen that day, so it’s definitely a little disappointing.”

Coach Corey Ihmels also felt the disappointment. A couple runners weren’t in top condition, he said, and Kiel Uhl, who took first on the team with a 71st-place finish, fell down after 2,000 meters of the 10,000-meter race.

“I knew going in on the men’s side we weren’t completely healthy. Guor [Majak] wasn’t 100 percent, Hillary [Bor] wasn’t 100 percent, and Kiel fell during the race,” Ihmels said. “We had some things happen that just kind of hurt us a little bit. It is what it is.

“I think we kind of looked like we hadn’t been at the national meet in 10 years – that’s how it looked.”

As disappointed as the team was, Ihmels said just going to Nationals was a big step for the program, and that maybe a lower finish would pay off in the long run.

“The team walked away from the course a little disappointed [last week] but that’s good because it means something to them and we’ll move forward,” Ihmels said.

There is reason to be optimistic. Of the seven runners who competed at Nationals, only Russ, a senior, will graduate. That leaves Uhl, Bor, Majak, Kevin Born, Richard Newton and Brandon Rooney, among others who weren’t in the top seven, to come back next year.

“There’s no reason we won’t be back at Nationals next year,” Russ said. “I think the coach will keep recruiting good athletes, and we’ve definitely got that good base.

“There were a lot of guys in the lineup this year that didn’t get that chance, and definitely next year when they get that chance they will take it, and we can do what we want to do at nationals next year.”

The experience of making it this year should also help in the future, Russ said.

“It was a disappointing feeling, but that can motivate you because that disappointment we felt, they don’t want to be there again and feel that pain,” Russ said. “It’s the first time we’ve run at Nationals, so it’s all a learning curve, but I think everyone wants to do better next year.”

Russ said a less-than-stellar performance in the final meet couldn’t take away what the team accomplished to get to that point.

Both Ihmels and Russ felt the program was on the way to the point where they wanted it to be – a threat to make the NCAA meet every year.

“A lot of people probably didn’t expect us to get there, but we’ve made it our goal as a team to be in Nationals every year, and I think we’re about to the point now where we are not just wanting stuff to happen, we know it’s going to happen, as we expect to be one of the best teams in the country,” Russ said.