Charleston, Ill. — The Southeast Missouri cross country teams have finished its regular season and are now gearing up for the OVC Championships.

The meet will be hosted by Eastern Illinois, in Charleston, Illinois, and the men's 8k is slated for 9 a.m. and the women's 6k will follow at 10 a.m. Friday Morning. 

There will be runners from each of the 10 schools competing for the individual and team championships

Hear from the coach

"Our level of training, on both sides, has been the best as we have had in years," said coach Ryan Lane. "We are healthy and have been doing things in practice that we have not done in a long time as a collective group. We have a great attitude and high expectations that we will run season best times on both sides. We will be the best versions of ourselves, and we can control what we can control."

"Our women's team just finished one spot behind last year's conference championship team and they have a good collective day we have the opportunity to get to the top," Lane said. 

"On the men's side there were six conference teams in a tight grouping in the last race and are very close to where we want to be. It will be very close and interesting, and it will come down to who runs the best on the given day," said Lane.
 
Last Time Out

The teams competed at the Angel Mounds Classic and the men's team finished the 8k race 12^th out of 17 teams collecting 278 points. The women finished sixth out of 19 squads, collecting 212 points. 

Garrett Dumke set a new personal best mark pacing the Redhawks finishing 24^th in 24:47.8. Nick Cimmarusti followed him in 59^th with a mark if 25:27.6 ahead of Evan Fuller, who finished 80^th in 25:49.6. Byron Sowerby scored team points for the first time this season placing 87^th in 25:59.2. Wrapping up the team scoring was Ian Schwierjohn in 94^th in 26:07.2.
 
In her first meet of the season, Nova Ojutkangas led SEMO finishing in 25^th with a time of 22:03.1. Lauren Eftink followed in 42^nd with a mark of 22:25.7. Julia Martinez Dura scored for the second consecutive meet finishing in 51^st in 22:40.9. Daphne Bishop finished in 56^th in 22:44.7 just ahead of Kayla Vogelsang in 57^th in 22:46.2.

About the Course

This will be the second time the squads compete on this course as earlier in the season SEMO competed in the Walt Crawford Open. SEMO used this race as a preview for the conference meet and had the top eight men finish within 33 seconds of each other and the women had the top five runners finish within five seconds of each other. 
 
Looking Ahead

The next scheduled meet is the NCAA Midwest Regional for the runners who qualify. That meet will be Friday November 14^th in Stillwater, Oklahoma.