With another week in the books and another meet under their belts, the men and women of Eastern cross country once again showed their strength as a team and individuals over the weekend at the Bradley “Pink” Classic.

It was Eastern’s second meet of the year at Bradley, and both ended with similar results for both the men’s and women’s team.

In the first meet at Bradley, the Bradley Intercollegiate, both the men and women’s teams placed second out of six, and both teams were led by standouts senior Maria Baldwin for the women and freshman Dustin Hatfield for the men.

This past weekend Eastern saw much of the same from their athletes, as it had three top 30 finishers in the race. There were two runners for the men and one for the women in the top 30.

Hatfield was once again Eastern’s top runner with a 20th place finish in the 8K with a time of 25 minutes, 15.9 and then senior Chris Orlow was right behind Hatfield with a time of 25:17.4 which was good enough for the 22nd place spot in the 8K.

For the men, sophomore Marcus Skinner also placed in the top 100 with a 64th place finish with a time of 25:50, which helped the men’s team finish in 12th out of 28 teams in the meet. The meet also included nine ranked teams from the Midwest and Great Lakes Regions.

On the women’s side Baldwin led the Eastern women team with a 26th place finish in the 6K with a time of 21:38.0.

Other female runners that scored for Eastern were junior Grace Rowan, junior Ali Gutt, and freshman Kate Bushue. Rowan and Gutt finished in 108th and 109th respectively with times of 22:46.6 and 22:47.8. Bushue finished 129th with a time of 23:00.7.

With multiple scoring runners for Eastern women, their team finished 18th overall in a field of 31. A field that included ten regionally ranked teams from the Midwest and Great Lakes Regions.

The Bradley “Pink” Classic winds down the season for Eastern as they only have one more meet before it returns home for the OVC conference meet.

The next meet the team will travel to is the Illini Open Oct. 20.

Alex Hartman can be reached 581-2812 or aihartman@eiu.edu