For the first time in ten years, the Eastern women’s cross country team took home the Ohio Valley Conference championship, upsetting the favorite and defending champion, Eastern Kentucky. The title is just the second in Eastern’s program history, as Eastern had five runners named to the All-OVC team.

Leading the way for the Panthers for the second straight week was junior Erika Ramos, finishing fourth with a time of 18:18.72. Ramos was one of three Eastern runners to notch first team All-OVC honors.

With the meet being held at Eastern Kentucky’s home course, Ramos said coming out on top felt even better.

“It feels great because it was at our rival school, EKU, and we totally wanted to go down there and beat them at their home course,” Ramos said.

Ramos said the keys to being the Panthers’ top finisher two weeks in a row was a combination of a positive attitude and effective practicing.

“A bunch of positive thoughts and great workouts throughout the week,” she said. “Coach (Erin Howarth) tells me she believes in me all the time, and I just put it all together and it all works out.”

Ramos said that beating Eastern Kentucky has been a goal of the Panthers for awhile.

“It’s been our goal since last conference (championships),” she said. “We lost to them by, I think, 25 points, and pretty much we need to put six of our runners in front of their top five, and once we had all crossed the finish line, Coach (Howarth) was making some calculations, and we pretty much knew once we had all cross the finish line that we had won.”

Ramos said that the keys to winning the meet were the team’s confidence, having a healthy team, and having three seniors on the team.

Head coach Erin Howarth was also named OVC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year. Ramos said Howarth, only in her second year at Eastern, has made great improvements to the program.

“It’s unbelievable how she’s brought everything she knows with her philosophy on running to our program and just changed everything,” she said.

The men’s team finished in second place, just behind Eastern Kentucky, with red-shirt senior Brad LaRocque earning All-OVC honors for the second straight season. LaRocque led the Panthers, finishing in seventh place with a time of 25:44.93. LaRocque was one of four runners on the Panther men’s team to earn All-OVC honors.

Both the men’s and women’s teams will return to action in two weeks for the NCAA Midwest Regional.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7942 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu.