MOREHEAD, Ky. – Just like it did in 2022 and 2023, the 2025 Morehead State cross country team's schedule will include just six meets. And for the second straight year, the first competition will be in August, only the second time that has happened since 2013.
In 2024, MSU scheduled eight meets, although on one weekend the team was split into two groups and sent in different directions, and another competition was canceled due to Hurricane Helene.
The men will run an 8K in every competition, except the season opener and finale. The women's distance will vary from race to race.
Friday, Aug. 29, the team will travel to Richmond, Ky., for the EKU Invitational. There, the men will run a 6K, with the women covering 4K. It marks the earliest start in school history according to available information.
A week later, the club will head to Charleston, Ill., for the EIU Walt Crawford Open, which will be the same course that will host the Ohio Valley Conference Championships. The men will run their first 8K, with the women's distance at 6K.
The Eagles will take nearly a month off before returning for a pair of familiar events, the Live in Lou Classic in Louisville, Ky., on Saturday, Oct. 4, and the Angel Mounds Invitational in Evansville, Ind., on Friday, Oct. 17.
Depending on which division MSU enters in Louisville, the women will either compete in a 6K (Blue) or 5K (Gold). In Evansville, the ladies' race will be a 6K.
The Blue and Gold will conclude the year with a pair of postseason competitions, the OVC Championships on Halloween Day and the NCAA Southeast Regional on Saturday, Nov. 14.
Both of the women's races will be 6K. The men will run a 10K at the regional.
"I chose meets that would help prepare us for conference and regionals," said MSU head coach
Clay Dixon.
The Eagles are returning to EKU for the season-opening meet after a two-year hiatus. In 2022, both teams were third at the Eastern Kentucky Tri-Meet. The Blue and Gold also competed there in both the fall and spring of 2021, when both squads were second.
"We'll be sitting out some of our top runners for EKU, so they can train and focus on EIU the following week for the (OVC) course preview," Dixon said.
The trip to Eastern Illinois will mark the first time MSU will run in Charleston, Ill., since 2017. The last time the team competed at the site of a conference opponent was October 18, 2024, when MSU ran in the Golden Eagle Invitational at Tennessee Tech. It also will be the first time that the Eagles will participate in a preview meet at the site of the conference championship since they did so in 2021 at Nashville's Percy Warner Park.
Morehead State's men were second in the 2017 OVC Championships, while the women were ninth. The men's performance was the best for either team since the men placed second in 2006.
"We'll have a three-week gap to focus on training and come back to Louisville and hopefully get into the Gold (Division) race," Dixon said.
The Eagles did not run in Louisville or Evansville last year, but both sites are very familiar to the Blue and Gold.
MSU will make its 15th trip in the last 18 years to UofL's meet, which will again be run at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park. It is the lone Saturday competition on the schedule.
In the last three trips to the event, MSU's men finished 20th (of 46) in 2023, 24th (of 45) in 2022 and 22nd (of 62) in 2021; while the women placed 12th (of 41) in 2023, 37th (of 47) in 2022 and 14th (of 55) in 2021.
The Eagles last ran at the Angel Mounds Invitational in 2023, when the men were eighth (of 18) and the women were seventh (of 15). Morehead State also competed there in 2021, when the meet was named the Evansville Invitational. That season, the men were third of four and the women were second of three. The event is co-hosted by Ohio Valley Conference foe Southern Indiana and the University of Evansville.
The Angel Mounds course opened at the Angel Mounds State Historic Site in 2014. It will close after this season.
"We'll be at Angel Mounds one last time before that course is shut down," said Dixon. "It's flat and shouldn't be too strenuous on the legs as we approach OVC."
Last year at the OVC Championships, the Eagle women were seventh and the Eagle men were eighth. Former Eagle Laikin Tarlton placed 13th and earned second-team all-conference honors in 2024, the best finish for an individual on either team in six seasons.
After two years in South Carolina, the regional meet is making a return trip to the University of Virginia's Panorama Farms Course in nearby Earlysville, Va. The event was last run there in 2019. That year, the Blue and Gold finished 27th (men) and 29th (women). The same facility also hosted the 2017 meet, with the men 10th and the women 31st. Last fall, the Eagle men were 25th and the Eagle women were 29th at the event, which took place in Rock Hill, S.C.
"Regionals is on a very hilly course, so we will be hitting hills hard this season. And EIU has 80 percent of their course over crushed limestone, so we are trying to mimic that in our workouts," Dixon said.
If the Eagles were to advance to the NCAA Championships, they would compete on Saturday, Nov. 22 at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo.
