EVANSVILLE, Ind.- The Drury women's cross country team finished 16th as did Drury junior Claire McCune at the NCAA-II Midwest Regional Championship in Evansville, Indiana, on Saturday.
 
The Panthers finished with 460 points to come in 16th among 32 teams in the event. Second-ranked Grand Valley State won the regional with 40 points while Michigan Tech came in second with 146 points, and Walsh was third with 155.
 
McCune finished 16th in the 222-runner field and completed the six-kilometer race in 21:28.5.
 
"Claire was in contention and looked amazing for almost the entire race," said Drury head coach Kyle Gibson. "She was in sixth with 800 meters to go and just ran out of gas. Had it not been for a mid-season injury that affected her conditioning, she would have been right there (at the end)."
 
Drury's Katie McCune was 69th with a time of 22:47.6 while Allison Pell came in 108th (23:23.3). Freshman Faith Stark was 133rd (23:54.5), and Jayme Sue Vermaas finished 134th (23:57.4). Ryleigh Glenn crossed the line in 24:27.4 to finish 148th, while Cassandra Brown was 155th (24:41.9).
 
"This is, by far, the toughest region in the country," said Gibson. "There are nine nationally ranked teams in this region, and it's as loaded a field as it has ever been. I thought we made strides this year to finish where we did. We lost four of our top seven runners and still were basically in the same spot we finished last year.
 
"The biggest thing for me is that we have a better understanding of the process it takes to be a high-level cross country athlete."
 
Drury was 15th in the regional last year, and this season competed with one senior, three juniors, two sophomores, and a freshman.

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