MARYVILLE, Mo. – The Missouri Western cross country teams’ clever hashtag, #BeFirst for its inaugural season turned out to be pretty telling, Friday night.

The women’s team dominated the field at the Bearcat Open, claiming the team championship by 34 points with six of the top-nine individual finishers, including champion Kaitlyn Shoemaker. The men finished third as a team and placed two individuals in the top-eight, including Noah Rasmussen in fourth.

They did all that in their first-ever competition.

WOMEN RUN AWAY WITH TEAM TITLE
Shoemaker, the 2016 national junior college national champion, finished a minute ahead of her teammate, Claire Reedy, who had slightly more than a one minute lead on the third place finisher. Shoemaker finished the 5K in 18:46.9, while Reedy handled the course in 19:46.9. Megan Gillen was fifth, Allison Goos was seventh, Kelsey Cox finished eighth and Alison Nutt was ninth.

MEN STRONG AT THE TOP
Rasmussen’s 22:13.2 in the 4.2-mile race was good for fourth place, four seconds behind the third place finisher. Christian Arbuthnot ran a 22:38.8, good for eighth. Ross Baumer finished 19th, Alex Bautista was 21st and Chris Dunn rounded out Missouri Western’s final qualifying score at 23rd.

UP NEXT
Missouri Western’s newest sports teams will ride high into the Woody Greeno/Dirksen Invitational in Lincoln, Nebraska on Sept. 16.

— MWSU Athletics —