BOLIVAR, Mo.— The Drury men's cross country team had their best finish at the Great Lakes Valley Conference championships in 13 years as they came in third place at the Bolivar Municipal Golf Course in Bolivar, Missouri on Saturday.
 
11^th ranked Lewis won the event with 44 points, while Illinois Springfield was second with 55. The Panthers had 64 points to come in third and they had 56 fewer points than four-place Missouri-St. Louis.
 
Drury freshman Tyler Harris led the Panthers as the Springfield-Kickapoo product finished eighth in the 160-runner field with a time in the eight-kilometer run of 25:13.27. Thomas Shuster, also a freshman and from Willard, was ninth with a time of 25:15.54. Santiago Nunez-Gonzalez came in 12^th (25:32.98), Ethan Haynes was 15^th (25:41.04), and Trent Patterson was 20^th (25:57.34).
 
"I loved the tenacity of our guys," said Drury head coach Lee Wood. "There was a point in the race where we were six points back of Lewis and we really put ourselves in it overall. We have a tremendous amount of motivation and momentum moving into regionals. We had three brand-new guys to the team that were in our top three and this could be a scary-good group looking ahead to next year."
 
All five of Drury's top finishers were named to the All-GLVC team.
 
"It was a tough race and I struggled in the middle," said Harris. "But we had a strong 1-2-3 for Drury today and those guys really helped as I used them and they used me to have that kind of finish."
 
Cortland Ross of Illinois Springfield was the individual champion and named Runner of the Year in the GLVC after posting a winning time of 24:36.80.
 
The Panthers will compete again in the NCAA-II Midwest Regional on Nov. 4 in Evansville, Ind.
 
 
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