Wichita State women place 2nd in MVC Championships; men 3rd

Wichita State’s women’s cross country team finished second in the Missouri Valley Conference Championships on Saturday, its best since 2012.

The WSU men placed third after losing a tiebreaker to Illinois State. Both finished with 78 points. Illinois State took the tiebreaker based on head-to-head results comparing finishes by the top five runners. The Redbirds finished ahead of their comparable WSU runner in four spots.

It is WSU’s best men’s finish since 2012, also third place.

Bradley swept the titles, totaling 54 points in the women’s race to beat WSU’s 76 and 67 in the men’s race in Evansville, Ind.

For the WSU women, Sidney Hirsch finished seventh with a 5-kilometer time of 17 minutes, 18.79 seconds. Rebekah Topham, named MVC Freshman of the Year, finished eighth (17:18.87). No. 16 Kayla Deighan (17:38.90), No. 18 Lycia Hollon (17:41.55) and No. 27 Emilea Finley (17:56.48) also ran for WSU.

Bradley’s Caitlin Busch won the race, for a second season, with a time of 16:54.20.

In the men’s race, WSU’s Brady Johnson finished 11th on the 8-kilometer course with a time of 24:25.72. Ugis Jocis placed 12th with a time of 24:32.98, followed by No. 16 Kyle Larkin (24:38.24), No. 19 Paul Raymond (24:48.17) and No. 20 Dray Carson (24:49.87).

Indiana State’s John Mascari won the race with a time of 23:39.06, his fourth MVC title. He is the first Valley runner to win the meet four times since it began in 1947.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Wichita State women place 2nd in MVC Championships; men 3rd."