With temperatures at a brisk 36 degrees Saturday, the Eastern men and women’s cross country team’s competed in the OVC championship hosted at Eastern.

The championship meet was highly contested and featured high finishes by many Eastern runners competing on their home turf.

The meet marked the end of the regular season for the team and was held to see if any of the runners get to compete in the Midwest regional meet on Nov. 10.

The meet had great intensity with the temperature conditions having little effect on the runner’s performances.

Eastern started out strong on the men’s side with a sizable pack of runners near the front for the first half of the race and stayed near the top for the rest of the meet.

The final results of the meet saw Eastern finish in a close fourth place and an improved third place finish for the women.

The Eastern Kentucky men’s team wont the conference meet followed by Morehead State, Belmont and then Eastern.

The Eastern Kentucky women’s team also wont the women’s 5K. The second-place team was Belmont followed by Eastern in third.

Eastern athletes had their own individual success in bunches over the weekend, highlighted with freshman Dustin Hatfield earning second team All-OVC honors and OVC male freshman of the year.

“It was really cool being the first EIU runner to win the award. And the meet was a good learning experience that had some great competition, which was a lot of fun,” Hatfield said.

The other awards for Eastern featured top men’s finisher in 5th place, senior Chris Orlow, getting first team All-OVC honors. For the women’s team, senior runner Maria Baldwin earned second team All-OVC honors with her 9th place finish.

Other runners who placed were sophomore Marcus Skinner and redshirt senior Michael Mest who finished 29th and 32nd respectively.

For the women’s team, junior Ali Gutt placed 19th with a time of 18:06.2, and freshman Kate Bushue placed 23rd with a time of 18:12.4.

Alex Hartman can be reached at 

581-2812 or aihartman@eiu.edu.