The Eastern men’s and women’s cross country teams had high expectations going into Saturday’s NCAA Midwest Regional.

The Panthers didn’t come close as both teams’ seasons came to a close at the Missouri State Cross Country Facility in Springfield, Mo.

The men’s team finished 24th of 25 schools, and the women’s team wasn’t able to fill a full team (five runners) because of health issues.

The men’s came out strong and were in 15th place as a team, but the runners faded to the back.

“I’m perplexed still trying to figure out,” Eastern Head coach Geoff Masanet said.

Eastern red-shirt sophomore Brad LaRocque led the men’s team with an 89th-place finish in 33 minutes, 40.7 seconds in the 10,000-kilometer race.

Sophomore Matt Feldhake finished 118th (34.29.3), senior David Holm finished 145th (35:30.5), senior Aaron Iaun finished in 154th (35:52.7) and junior Matt Dettloff finished in 159th (36:08.01) to account for Eastern’s scoring runners.

Masanet said LaRocque had a decent race, and Feldhake raced well despite a blister, which was half the size of his foot and after he took his shoe off, blood came out.

Although Masanet was disappointed, he said he would even evaluate himself.

The women’s team did not post a team score as red-shirt freshman Olivia Klaus had been sick for the past couple of weeks and all runners struggled in the race because of the weather in the 6,000-kilometer race. Klaus was the No. 2 runner and was a Second Team All-Ohio Valley Conference honoree.

Masanet said senior Erin O’Grady struggled in the race, like many of the other runners.

“Erin was doing reasonable,” he said.

O’Grady had to walk across the finish line.

“It was brutal,” Masanet said. “The medical tent was something you see in the army.”

Masanet said about 15 women dropped out of the race.

O’Grady finished in 145th place in 24:33.0.

The freshmen rounded out the rest of the Panthers’ squad. Freshman Danielle Dickman finished in 175th in 24:56.8. Freshman Elizabeth Dole finished in 167th at 25:43.4. Freshman Stephanie Peisker finished in 170th at 25:53.4

Illinois senior Angela Bizzarri won in 20:07.5 to capture the women’s title. Minnesota senior Mead Hassan won the regional for second straight year in 30:21.9.

Minnesota won the women’s team title while Oklahoma State captured the men’s regional title to gain automatic berths to the NCAA Championships Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind. The Illinois women’s team and the Oklahoma men’s team also earned automatic bids.

Around the OVC, the Eastern Kentucky men’s cross-country team had the best finish with a seventh-place mark at the Southeast Region at Louisville. Junior Wesley Ruttoh, the OVC Champion, will advance to the NCAA Championships with his second-place finish Saturday.

Results

http://www.flashresults.com/2010_Meets/xc/NCAAMWRegion/

Kevin Murphy can be reached at 581-7944 or kjmurphy@eiu.edu.