NCAA Midwest Regional Information
Eastern Illinois men's and women's cross country will compete in the NCAA Midwest Regional this Friday as the Iowa State Cross Country Course in Ames, Iowa. The women's 6K event will begin at 10:45 a.m. followed by the men's 10K race at 11:45 a.m.
Eastern Illinois is coming off a solid finish at the Ohio Valley Conference Championships that were contested on Oct. 28 at the Tom Woodall Panther Trail on the EIU campus. The EIU women placed third as a team led by senior
Maria Baldwin who earned her fourth straight All-OVC honor with a ninth place finish. On the men's side EIU placed fourth with senior
Chris Orlow earning first team All-OVC honors with a fifth place finish. Dustin Hatfield earned second team All-OVC honors placing ninth. Hatfield was the OVC Male Freshman Runner of the Year.
At the OVC Championships Baldwin posted a 5K time of 17:37.2 which ranks as the fourth best 5K time in school history. She became just the second EIU women's runner to ever earn All-OVC honors in cross country four times. Earlier this season EIU ran the 6K distance at the Bradley Classic. Baldwin placed 26th in that race with a time of 21:38. Grace Rowan and Ali Gutt also finished with times under 23 minutes while freshman Kate Bushue crossed just at the 23 minute mark. Baldwin, Rowan, Gutt and Bushue will be four of the eight runners that EIU sends to Iowa State to compete on Friday. The other four runners set to make the trip for EIU are Sadie Elliott, Maggie McPherson, Avani Flanagan and
Caroline Collet. Earlier this season the EIU women's program was ranked in the top 15 in the NCAA Midwest Region.
The men's team will be led by Orlow who posted the eighth fastest 8K time in school history with a fifth place finish at the OVC Championships. Orlow's time was 24:23.3. Dustin Hatfield set the EIU freshman 8K record during the season with a time of 24:35.2 at the OVC Championships. This will be the first time this season that the EIU men have competed at the 10K distance. The Panthers will be sending eight runners to the NCAA Midwest Regional with Jose Aguilera, Joe Carter, Tyler Lay, Jaime Marcos, Michael Mest and Marcus Skinner set to join Orlow and Hatfield.
