The Missouri Southern women’s cross country team strode ahead of other competition to place first at the Miner’s Invitational on Oct. 4.

The Lions posted 43 points in the meet, while second placed Truman State University had 56 points. TSU is ranked 17th nationally.

“I think it went well, we got to beat Truman,” said Jen Noelken, senior English major.

Noelken said the team “packed” better at the Miner’s Invitational than at the Southern Stampede held Sept. 20. At the stampede TSU defeated the Lions by 18 points. Head coach Patty Vavra said during the home meet, TSU’s No. 3 runner was ahead of Southern’s No. 2 runner.

The next meet for Southern is Oct. 11 at the Missouri-Illinois Border War held at the University of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville. Vavra said this meet would be one of the biggest meets of the year.

“It (the meet) will be very competitive,” Vavra said.

Noelken said the meet will be a hard one for the team to run in. She said the team would have to focus on itself before the meet.

“It’s (the meet at Rolla) nice because of the smaller number of entrants,” Vavra said “It gives you an opportunity to focus on your group and trying to pack in.”

She said the meet brings in more schools, because it is the meet before the conference championships. The team would want to place high in the rankings. Vavra said the Border War will allow the team to see teams that will compete in the conference championships that the Lions haven’t seen before. It will also allow the team to see the strengths of the other teams in the conference before the championships.

“The difference is this is such a big meet; the conference meet is smaller and there wouldn’t be as many people in between,” Vavra said.

Pittsburg State University was named as the team that would win the championships in the pre-season poll. PSU still remains the No. 1 team in the region. Vavra said the last three years the championships have been decided within 10 points.

“The thing that is most impressive about our young ladies is they have not plateaued yet,” she said. “They keep improving every week.”

Vavra said at the beginning of the season some of the athletes were sick with the flu and that cut back on the training needed. Now that the team is in full health it expects to have a good showing at the Border War Saturday and at the MIAA conference championships Oct. 25 in Kirksville.