Results: Women | Men

JOPLIN, Mo. - Three of the school's best performances ever highlighted the Eagles' third-place finishes at Missouri Southern's First to the Finish Southern Stampede Saturday morning.

On the men's side, sophomore Cris Renteria completed the eight-kilometer course in 25:31.48 and fellow sophomore Emily Neally crossed the line in the women's 5K at 18:15.31. Both times rank third on CMU's all-time list. Freshman Megan Greener, competing in her first 5K as an Eagle, recorded a top-10 time in school history as well, finishing 22nd overall in 19:00.01.

Renteria finished second overall, Neally third, and both were the top HAAC conference finishers. Neally crossed the line one spot ahead of Baker University's Lauren Jaqua, the three-time defending HAAC champion. Team-wise, the men were the top HAAC finishers and the women were second behind Baker.

Sophomores Brett Davis (26:46.93) and Tyler Meierarend (26:51.55), freshman Brennan Cape (27:17.49), junior Ryan Ferrell (27:33.76), sophomore Austin Jones (27.38.80) and freshman Dakota Shoemaker (27:52.12) joined Renteria as the seven male Eagle scorers. Davis' time was a personal record.

Junior Haley Breusch (19:01.43), senior Adriana Romero (19:32.75), freshman Allyson Ng (19:33.67), senior Elise Schreiber (20:07.73) and freshman Rachel Howieson (21:14.77) combined with Neally and Greener to make up the female Eagle scorers. With the exception of Schreiber, who was battling sickness, all of those times were personal records.

"It went good," head coach Chris Sandefur said. "We're a lot farther ahead of where we were last year." The women's team averaged 19:04.64, nearly the same time they did at the 2012 HAAC championship meet in November. The men performed even better in relation to last year's conference result, averaging 26:48.25, nearly 40 seconds faster.

The Eagle cross country teams will split their squads when they return to action Oct. 12. The varsity teams will compete at the NAIA Pre-National meet in Lawrence, Kan. and the junior varsity runners will toe the line at CMU's second home meet, the Gary Stoner Invitational.

"They're excited," said Sandefur of his teams. "We just have to work really hard to keep moving forward."

He added that some of his runners have been fighting sicknesses and the next two weeks should allow them a chance to recover fully.

"Once we get everyone feeling better, we're going to be right where we need to be to compete with any team around this area."
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