Since being named the head men’s and women’s cross country coach prior to the 2017 season, Jake Reed has revitalized the program, guiding each team to a pair of NCAA Division III championship appearances and piloting the first regional championship in women’s program history in 2022.
Reed is a four-time ODAC coach of the year, coached two regional champions, five ODAC champions, and captured four team conference championships. Under his tutelage, 33 athletes have qualified for the NCAA championship, 39 have been named to an all-region team, and 46 to an all-conference team.
He has coached both the men’s and women’s program record holders in Frank Csorba and Stephanie Burnett and oversaw Kaitlyn Johnson’s All-American performance at the 2018 national championship.
As the head distance coach for the men’s and women’s track and field teams, Reed has assisted in securing 14 ODAC championships and has coached 17 All-Americans
In 2022, Reed took both the men’s and women’s teams back to the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship meet for a second-consecutive season. The women received an automatic bid to the championship after clinching the first South Region championship in program history while the men received an at-large bid after finishing within one point of a regional championship of their own. The women finished 21st and the men 30th at the national championship.
At the South Region championship in 2022, all seven athletes earned all-region accolades for the women’s team while an additional six earned the distinction for the men. Sam Llaneza secured the individual regional championship for the men. Both teams recorded perfect scores by sweeping the top five positions at the ODAC championship meet to secure a pair of conference titles for the second-straight season. The men’s and women’s teams combined to place 16 student-athletes on the ODAC all-conference teams with Frank Csorba and Kelsey Lagunas leading the way for their respective teams with first-place finishes.
For the second straight season in 2022, Reed earned coach of the year honors for the conference for both the men’s and women’s seasons. Throughout the year, six different women recorded times within the program’s top-12 all-time performances, and Frank Csorba broke the program record for the men’s 8k at the Paul Short Invitational hosted by Lehigh University.
In 2021, Reed led Lynchburg back to the national stage by taking both the men’s and women’s teams to the 2021 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship meet in Louisville, Ky. where the men finished 18th and the women finished 32nd. It was the first team appearance for men since 2012 and the first for the women since 1998. Both teams received at-large bids after finishing as runners-up at the South Region Championship, where five men and seven women were named to the all-region team, including the men’s South Region champion Max Sparks.
Both teams secured wins at the ODAC Championship meet where the two squads combined to secure 13 all-conference selections and a pair of individual conference champions in Kelsey Lagunas and Max Sparks. Reed was named the ODAC coach of the year for both the men and the women, while Sparks and Stephanie Burnett received ODAC runner of the year laurels.
