One race doesn’t define a cross country team, and that is certainly the case for the BG women’s team.

The women finished seventh out of 12 teams Saturday at the Mid-American Conference Championship meet, one spot ahead of where they were voted to finish in the preseason. However, the women wanted to place higher than last year’s fifth-place finish and thought that a top three finish this season was definitely a possibility.

‘We’re a good team,’ said coach Cami Wells. ‘But certainly we could have performed better.’

‘We simply didn’t get it done, and there were teams that stepped up and performed better,’ she said. ‘It certainly wasn’t for a lack of desire.’

Miami won the first-ever 6K championship event with 44 points, as its first seven runners all finished in the top 20. Toledo finished second, with its own Ari Fisher earning the individual title with a time of 22:18.

Leading BG for the second time this season, Abby Koch placed 26th out of 104 runners and was the third freshman to finish.

‘Abby Koch ran a very nice race for us,’ Wells said. ‘It was certainly a solid effort for her. She did a really nice job for us.’

Carly Wells finished 31st, and Heather Conger placed 42nd, coming off of an impressive third-place finish at the Falcon Invite in the final regular season meet. BG’s next four runners all finished between 52nd and 67th place.

BG will look to regroup and continue to work toward finishing the season on a positive note.

The next meet is the Great Lakes regional meet, which is the qualifying race for the National Championships in late November.

‘We want to have good, strong team effort,’ Wells said. ‘We want finish out this final meet and show they’re a better team than [Saturday].’

The 6K regional meet will be held Nov. 14 at 12:15 p.m. in Bloomington, Ind.’