MOREHEAD, Ky. — The Morehead State men's and women's cross country teams will look to notch their best performances in years as both head to Martin, Tenn., for Friday morning's Ohio Valley Conference Championships.
The meet will be held on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Martin, with the women's 6K starting at 10 a.m. ET and the men's 8K at 11 a.m. ET.
It will be the first time in OVC history that the competition will take place on a course completely constructed for the event that is exclusively on a school campus. UTM last served as the host in 2014, but this will be the first meet run in Martin since 2004.
"(The) course is four loops for women and five loops for the men, so it will probably get bunched up those last few laps," MSU coach
Clay Dixon said. "The course looks solid, with some tight turns, mostly flat, but a slight incline towards the end of a lap. There is one section that is pretty muddy, but it's cross country, so it should be fun."
It also will be the first time the meet will be run on a Friday. The change was made to correlate the schedule with the annual regional championships, which take place on a Friday.
All 11 OVC schools are expected to compete: Morehead State, Eastern Illinois, Lindenwood, Little Rock, Southeast Missouri, SIU Edwardsville, Southern Indiana, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT Martin and Western Illinois. It will be the second largest number of teams in conference history, having peaked at 12 between 2012 and 2020.
Each team is allowed to enter up to 10 runners. Approximately, 110 are expected for each race.
Morehead State's women finished sixth last year, while the men placed ninth. The Blue and Gold also recorded 14 "pr's" in 2023.
The Eagle women enter the event with one of their strongest teams in several seasons. They have finished sixth or seventh in each of the last five years. The 2018 club claimed fourth, the team's best performance since it claimed no lower than fifth place the first seven years of the century.
The MSU women have won the meet twice, 1979 and 2000. They have finished in the top four 16 times.
Sophomore
Taylor Allen, sophomore
Lani Baskett, redshirt sophomore
Lydia Bauer, junior
Christiana Brittian, senior
Megan Bush, freshman
Meredith Campbell, junior
Kaylyn Holman, senior
Lucy Singleton, fifth-year
Laikin Tarlton and junior
Abby Taylor will make up the Eagle women's representatives.
The men took a dip last fall, after taking seventh in 2021 and 2022, and fifth from 2018 to 2020. The 2017 squad finished second.
The MSU men have captured 32 top-four finishes, including taking the top spot in 1995 and 1988. The 2017 squad finished second.
Freshman
Brody Coleman, fifth-year
Peyton Fairchild, freshman
Preston Glassco, senior
Austin Montgomery, freshman
Ryan Richendollar, fifth-year
Kyler Stewart, sophomore
Keghan Thompson, fifth year
Jacob Vogelpohl, sophomore
Garrett West and sophomore
Aidan Whitsell will comprise MSU's men's entries.
"Let's go out there and see what they can do," Dixon said. "I'm confident in their workouts the last few weeks and how this season has prepared them for (the championships)."
The meet was first run in 1963. The inaugural women's race was in 1979.
Both Eagle teams have had individual champions. Hall of Famers Jeff Faith and Karen Lutes won the titles in 1996 and 2001, respectively, while Susie Anderson brought home the crown in 2000.
Garrett Watts (sixth in 2022) and Sierra Poppell (third in 2018) were the two squads' last podium finishers.
After both races, the Athletes of the Championships, Coaches of the Year and the First-Team and Second-Team all-conference selections will be recognized during an awards presentation. The top seven finishers in each gender will be on the first team, with the next seven making the second team. The two individual winners will be recognized as the Athlete of the Championship.
The conference announced its seasonal awards for Male Athlete of the Year (Brady Terry, Southern Indiana), Female Athlete of the Year (Nova Ojutkangas, Southeast Missouri), Male Freshman of the Year (Keegan Enicks, UT Martin) and Female Freshman of the Year (Aaliyah Joshua, Little Rock) on Thursday.
Morehead State last raced at the Golden Eagle Invitational at Tennessee Tech on Friday, Oct. 18. There, the men finished second, while the women were third. For the second time this season, Vogelpohl and Tarlton led the squad with top-10 results.
Twice this fall, MSU runners have moved into the school record books for races that ranked them among the top-20 all-time performers. At Tennessee Tech, that group included Tarlton, Campbell and Taylor in the women's 6K. A week earlier at the Queens Cross Country Invitational, Tarlton, Singleton and Campbell, made the list in the women's 5K.
At TTU, Vogelpohl (second in 25:45.35), Fairchild (sixth in 26:26.15) and freshman
Ryan Richendollar (eighth in 26:47.31) each claimed top-10 finishes in the 8K race. Tarlton was eighth in 22:12.00 in the 6K event.
Tarlton has led the Eagle women in every race she has run this year. Freshman
Natalie Cotton was the first Eagle across the line at Berea's Mike and Mary Kay Johnson Classic. Vogelpohl has topped the men's team three times, with Fairchild and Coleman each doing so once. Tarlton and Vogelpohl earned their first-ever OVC Athlete of the Week honors for their performances at the Queens Invitational.
Nine MSU runners who are entered in Friday's competition also ran at last year's OVC meet in Morehead. Singleton was the Eagles' top overall finisher. She was 21st in 22:35.68. Tarlton was next among the ladies in 24th in 22:40.86. Brittian followed in 45th in 23:26.41, with Bush in 54th in 23:45.45, Taylor in 55th in 23:45.51 and Allen in 70th in 24:22.50.
Fairchild was Morehead State's top men's finisher. He was 36th in 25:04.86. Stewart was next in 48th in 25:26.02, with senor
Jacob Vogelpohl in 51st in 25:34.31.
Of the nine, all but Allen also ran two years ago. Holman missed the 2023 race, but did toe the line in 2022. Singleton, Bush and Montgomery also participated in 2021; with Fairchild, Stewart and Tarlton having competed in each of the last four OVC Championships.
The MSU men have run four 8K races this year, while the women will be competing in their second 6K of the season on Friday.
Eastern Illinois has won the last four men's team titles and the last two women's crowns. Eastern Illinois' Adam Swanson was the 2023 men's medalist, with Southeast Missouri's Hannah Eastman claiming the honor for the women.
For the third straight year, no OVC school appears in the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's regional rankings entering the championship meet.
To follow live results, click
https://shorturl.at/Mzo0Q. For the OVC Championships Central page, click
https://shorturl.at/QABtv. There will be no live video.
Morehead State will most likely conclude its season at the NCAA Southeast Regional on Friday, Nov. 15, in Rock Hill, S.C. If anyone advances on to the NCAA Championships, they will be held on Saturday, Nov. 23, in Verona, Wisc.
