MOREHEAD, Ky. – One point separated Morehead State from Saturday's women's team title at the University of Evansville Cross Country Invitational. Instead, Purdue-Fort Wayne won the crown on the course at the Angel Mounds State Historic Site.

The Mastodons scored 33 points, with the Eagles next at 34 and host Evansville third at 61.

"One team didn't field a full team, if they did we would've won," MSU coach Clay Dixon said, referring to Vincennes. "It's just one of those things that happens in cross country."

Although winning would have been nice, according to Dixon the most important thing was getting practice running a 6K, something the women's team will not do again until it competes at the Southeastern Regionals.

"We had two goals. One to get experience at the 6K distance. Riliegh (Owens) was the only one of the (seven) girls to have run a 6K before and she did that in her first meet two years ago," Dixon said. "The second was to treat this like the conference championship (where there are fewer runners), where there are gaps in between the runners and (each runner has) the mental struggle to decide whether to slow down or speed up (so the team will stay together in a pack), and the girls did well with that."

Like she did at the Commodore Classic about a month ago, freshman Laikin Tarlton was MSU's top finisher placing fourth in 23:27.3. Freshmen Lucy Singleton and Isabella Copher were right behind Tarlton in fifth and sixth in 23:31.8 and 23:35.5, respectively.

Freshman Cloe Copas was eighth in 24:05.4, with sophomore Riliegh Owens 11th in 24:25.4, freshman Megan Bush 13th in 24:31.0 and freshman Lilly Gray 22nd in 26:45.0.

"I am really pleased, they went out and executed the plan well," Dixon said. "If the 6K was a 5K, we'd have three (with times) in the low 19s (minutes), and Cloe and Riliegh would be in the low 20s or high 19s. It was a good experience for them and a step in the right direction for the next time at regions when we see our next 6K."

Purdue Fort Wayne's Madison King won the race in 21:41.9. Evansville's Anna Lowry was second in 22:02.3, with PFW's Brooke Neal third in 23:19.3. There were 31 total runners in the race.

The Eagle men finished in third in their event with 78 points. Purdue Fort Wayne had the first seven individuals cross the line to post a perfect score of 15. Vincenes was second with 67 points. Host Evansville rounded out the field with 92 points.

"We wanted to go out conservatively, pack up and use each other, and then go out and attack," Dixon said.

Liam Dale paced the all-freshman MSU lineup in the 8K contest by placing 11th in 27:36.2. Ethan Vance was 16th in 28:16.9, with Jacob Vogelpohl in 17th in 28:21.3, Brandon McDaniel in 21st in 29:06.0, Jonah Stanley in 22nd in 29:12.1, Austin Montgomery in 23rd in 29:21.7, Wes Grogan in 26th in 29:41.2 and Sam Lucas in 28th in 29:50.1.

"Liam had a solid performance. He took the lead among our people and stayed consistent throughout the race. He executed the plan really well," Dixon said. "Our top five were together through two, 2.5 miles and then Ethan, Jacob and Jonah started attacking. … Liam and Ethan really stepped up today."

Purdue Fort Wayne's Andrew Whitinger won the race in 25:52.1, followed by teammates Draven Thompson (26:11.1), JT Hodges (26:18.4), Nathan Mills (26:18.5) and Nicholas Mills (26:18.9) in the top five. The field included 38 runners.

Both MSU squads are off next week, but return on Saturday, Oct. 30 to compete in the Ohio Valley Conference Championship in Nashville.