MOREHEAD, Ky. — Behind the efforts of Lucy Singleton, Isabella Copher and Laikin Tarlton, the Morehead State women's cross country team placed sixth at Saturday's Ohio Valley Conference Championships, repeating its finish from last season.

In muddy and wet conditions stemming from three days of rain, the Eagle women tallied 152 points, an improvement of 22 points over last year's race, on the Vaughn's Creek Cross Country Course at Percy Warner Park in Nashville. The Eagle men did not fare as well on the slick terrain, placing seventh with 182 points, snapping a three-year run of claiming fifth.

Singleton placed 18th, running the 5K race in 19:06.4, with Copher 19th in 19:07.4 and Tarlton 25th in 19:20.8, helping the team to record its fourth consecutive top-seven finish at the conference meet.

"I was really pleased with the girls. The plan was for the pack of three to hopefully finish in the top 20-25 and they did exactly that," MSU head coach Clay Dixon said. "The bonus was having two in the top 20."

Belmont captured the team title with 36 points, followed by Tennessee Tech (48), Eastern Illinois (60), Murray State (129), Southeast Missouri State (145), Morehead State, Tennessee-Martin (165), Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (186), Austin Peay (273) and Tennessee State 325.

 "It came down to seven points (for us) to finish in fifth place. On a muddy course, it was anybody's day," Dixon said. "I was really pleased with the girls. They ran very well. They took to the course and the muddy conditions, and executed the plan perfectly. Lucy and Isabella even got 'pr's and on a course like that, that's saying something."

Cloe Copas was the fourth MSU runner to cross the line. She finished 46th in 19:53.7. Megan Bush followed in 49th (20:02.1), with Riliegh Owens 57th (20:21.2), Mary Alice Thornburg 69th (21:18.9), Carrie Staviski 74th (22:00.5) and Lilly Gray 75th (22:22.9).

"The biggest thing to work on now as we prepare for regionals is to close that 4-5 (finishing runners) gap so we have 1-5 (place runners) as close as possible," Dixon added.

Eastern Illinois' Lindsey Carlson was the overall winner with a time of 17:47.9. Her teammate, Kate Bush, finished second in 18:15.9, with Tennessee Tech's Helen Pacurariu-Nagy not far behind in 18:19.0.

Four men's teams finished within 12 points of each other, so Dixon knows just a few improvements in his team can close the gap on its league opponents when it retakes the course for the regional meet in two weeks.

"Some teams just have more luck running in bad conditions and some teams don't. Sometimes it just seems like we get the short end of the stick in those races," Dixon said.

"Between seventh and fifth was just nine points. It was a closely-packed race with muddy conditions and that big hill in the back was just a big mud pit. With weather conditions like that, anything can happen.

"Some people are just not mudders," he added. "Isabella and Lucy are great muddy, terrible-condition runners."

Kyle Embry was the team's top finisher placing 25th in the 8K event in 26:10.3. Jarrett Forrest was nine spots back in 34th in 26:34.2, while Peyton Fairchild captured 41st in 26:47.9.

"Kyle, Jarrett and Peyton all ran well and all were within 10 seconds of their 'pr's," Dixon said. "Kyle moved up several spots throughout race, but with muddy conditions it was anybody's race at that point."

Justin Bland was MSU's fourth finisher taking 50th in 27:16.4, with Michael Dunagan 54th in 27:32.7, Toby Cook 57th in 27:39.9, Justin Chavez 61st in 27:56.3, Kyler Stewart 65th in 28:14.0, Liam Dale 72nd in 28:33.1 and Austin Montgomery 75th in 28:44.6.

Eastern Illinois narrowly escaped a tough challenge from Belmont to retain its title with 35 points. The Bruins totaled 39 points, with Tennessee Tech at 88, Tennessee-Martin at 93, Southeast Missouri at 173, Murray State at 177, Morehead State at 182, SIU-Edwardsville at 185, Austin Peay at 280 and Tennessee State at 324.

"(The race conditions), that's what made it interesting today. Some teams who were better got beat by teams who were just tougher," Dixon added. "One promising thing is when we ran at Louisville a couple of weeks ago, SEMO beat us by 300 points. Today, they just beat us by nine. So, we are improving."

Like in the women's race, Eastern Illinois had the top two individual finishers in Dustin Hatfield (24:31.5) and Jaime Marcos (24:49.1). SIUE's Roland Prenzler was third in 25:08.2.

MSU returns to action on Friday, Nov. 12 at the NCAA Southeast Regional in Lexington.