MOREHEAD, KY. – The Lindenwood University cross country teams wrapped up the 2023 season with a pair of tenth-place finishes among the eleven-team field at the Ohio Valley Conference Championships, held at the Eagle Trace Golf Course in Morehead, Kentucky.

MEET OVERVIEW
With significantly faster races than last year's championships across both the eight-kilometer men's course and the six-kilometer women's course, the Lions held pace with their peers and showed significant individual and team improvement. Both squads improved by more than a minute per runner on aggregate from last year's conference championship, where the teams each finished ninth of ten squads.

Sophomores Anders Hekkli and Holly Harding led the teams, as they have for the bulk of the season. The meet closes the book on a season characterized by growth on and off the course, Head LU Cross Country Coach Damion Drummond said.

"For me it's simple: it was a good meet," Drummond said. "The results correlated to where we are as a program. This meet showed that our athletes have the ability and the tenacity to compete at this level."

With a young core of the team, Drummond said the competition should serve as a springboard to continued growth.
"The goal is that our freshmen and sophomores will continue to grow into what we're cultivating at Lindenwood," he said. We're very pleased."

Hekkli ran nearly 40 seconds faster than his lifetime best and nearly two minutes faster than his performance at last year's conference championship meet. He finished twenty-second at the OVC championship in both 2022 and 2023—a testament to the increasingly challenging competitive environment in the conference.

Six men and nine women raced for Lindenwood. Of that group, four men and four women ran career-best times, with an additional three achieving season-best marks.
Drummond said the performance was a demonstration of growth he's seen building in his time throughout the season, on and off the course.

"Today's performance, from an individual standpoint, is monumental in our classification in that our students have bought in to the mindset required to be competitive in the Ohio Valley Conference," Drummond said. I didn't see any fear today: they're becoming sure of themselves and that will pay off as we continue to grow together."

NOTABLE MEN'S PERFORMANCES:
8k – Anders Hekkli (24:41.65) placed 22^nd, William Kaempfe (25:48.82) placed 58^th, and Luke Talbot (26:13.83) placed 66^th.    

NOTABLE WOMEN'S PERFORMANCES:
6k – Holly Harding (23:09.65) placed 36^th, Kadence Berry (23:37.51) placed 51^st, and Kirsten Huffman (23:53. 68) placed 58^th.