As the sun was still rising in Terre Haute, Ind., the Panthers cross country runners were getting ready for one of their biggest races of the year. The Missouri Valley Conference Championship took place this Friday at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course with many of the athletes running some of their best times of the year. The women’s team managed to score 165 points to get 7th place out of the 12 teams that ran. The men got 9th place out of eleven other teams with a total of 251 points. 

Emma Hoins ran the best race for the UNI women’s team with a time of 22:19 getting her 21st out of the hundreds of other runners that took part in this race. Kate Crawford was only 10 seconds behind her with a time of 22:29 which gave her 26th place in the championships. Crawford managed to knock 12 seconds off of her time from last year’s championships in which she also placed 26th. Mia Rampton placed 41st with a time of 23:04, just in front of Paige Holub who was behind her by 0.8 seconds and got 42nd place. Isabelle Schaffer placed 43rd, Sophia Jungling got 50th, Sydney Schaffer got 51st and Ella Popenhagen got 55th. These times and performances helped ensure their seventh place finish as a team. 

The men also performed well as Brady Griebel led the team with a 25:45 time to receive 40th place. Griebel ran nearly a minute better than his performance in last year’s competition where he got 51st place. Caleb Shumaker ran a 25:53 which placed him at 46th among the other runners. 54th place was also held by the Panthers as Jayden Dickson ran a 26:21. Payton Marrs was four seconds behind Dickson to get 56th place. Drake Hanson achieved 60th place, Karson Kleve got 78th, David Holesinger II got 80th and Kon Dut finished 82nd. 

In the women’s competition, Bradley took the team championship with a total of just 22 points. The Braves had five runners finish in the top 10, including individual champion Nicola Jansen, running a time of 20:22. For the men, Bradley also took the team crown, finishing with 42 points, four points ahead of Drake. Drake’s Isaac Basten was the individual champion with a time of 24:29.

The Panthers will continue their running on Nov. 11 when they travel to Columbia, Mo. for the NCAA Regional meet at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course.