Drury's men's and women's cross country teams will be shooting for their first Great Lakes Valley Conference championships when the league meet is held Saturday at the Missouri S & T Golf Course in Rolla.
The men's 8K race will begin at 10:30 a.m. with the women's 6K run to follow at 11:30 and the awards ceremony for both at 1 p.m.
Both Drury teams are coached by Jon Van Arkel. The men are ranked No. 25 nationally in NCAA Division II and No. 6 in the Midwest Region in this week's rankings. League members Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky are nationally ranked No. 12 and No. 22, respectively. USI is No. 2 and NKU No. 5 in the regional rankings.
On the women's side, the Panthers are unranked and competing in a GLVC field that includes two league opponents in the national Top 25 - No. 7 Southern Indiana and No. 20 Wisconsin-Parkside. Southern Indiana is second, Parkside fifth and Northern Kentucky eighth in the latest Midwest Region rankings.
Runners to watch for the Drury men include sophomore Jaime Villa Zapatero and junior Geoff Hughes, while junior Tia Young is expected to contend on the women's side for the Panthers. Villa Zapatero, who finished fifth last season, has the league's second-best 8K time entering the meet (24:49), while Hughes has the eighth-best (25:20).
GLVC Championships site link