MARTIN, Tenn.—Strong efforts late in the race propelled University of Southern Indiana Men's Cross Country tot its first-ever Ohio Valley Conference title Friday morning at the OVC Championships.
Senior
Brady Terry made a late surge and out-kicked Eastern Illinois University's Joseph Stoddard for the individual title as the Screaming Eagles edged the Panthers by one point for the team title.
Terry was named the OVC Athlete of the Championship along with first-team All-OVC a day after garnering OVC Male Runner of the Year accolades. He finished the eight-kilometer race in 24 minutes, 10.3 seconds, a little more than a second faster than Stoddard, who crossed the finish line in 24:11.8.
Sophomore
Alex Nolan and junior
Isaac Stanford earned second-team All-OVC honors after finishing eighth and 11th, respectively. Nolan crossed the finish line in 24:35.6, while Stanford finished in 24:40.5.
As a team, the Eagles finished with 56 points, while Eastern Illinois was second with 57 points.
USI also got big contributions from sophomore
Jackson Collman and freshman
Layden Wagoner, both of whom finished in the top 20. Collman was 17th with a time of 24:58.5, while Wagoner was 19th with a time of 25:00.1
Sophomores
Cole Hess and
Landen Swiney were 23rd and 29th, respectively, to round out the Eagles' scorers, while sophomore
Tyler Zimmerman, freshman
Holden Hough and freshman
Kyle Kern rounded out the Eagles' lineup in the 85-competitor field.
Head Coach
Mike Hillyard also was named OVC Men's and Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year. It marks his first two Coach of the Year honors at the Division I level and his 30th and 31st-times in his career—he was a 29-time Great Lakes Valley Conference Men's and Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year at the Division II level.
The win gives USI's men their 28th conference championship in program history and its first at the Division I level and the OVC. USI's last conference title came in 2019, when the Eagles won the GLVC championship.
USI's win Friday also marked the first-ever OVC team title in a men's sport during the two-plus years the Eagles have been members of the league. USI Women's Basketball won the OVC Regular-Season and Tournament titles last March, while USI Women's Cross Country won the OVC title earlier today.
The Eagles will take a slight hiatus before returning to action in January for the Indoor Track & Field season.
