The Southeast Missouri State men's and women's cross country teams finished their season on Oct. 31 in Murray, Kentucky.

The women finished in third place while the men took seventh at the Ohio Valley Conference Cross Country Championships.

At the OVC Championships, junior Megan Parks earned second team All-OVC honors with her 12th place finish. Junior Angela Sumner, freshman Kaitlyn Shea and sophomore Sydney O'Brien all finished in the top 25.

"They've went to every meet and exceeded expectations," coach Ryan Lane said about the women's team. "I think we went into the conference meet ranked fifth and took third, and we were very close to second."

The men were led by senior Shane Brown, who finished 28th overall. Sophomore Dan Plunkett, junior Jaime Zarate and junior Marc Maton all finished in the top 50.

"We had run well all year," Lane said. "Unfortunately the worst day they've had this year was at the conference meet... Finishing seventh was not our goal."

"I'm not happy with it, but I'm just going to set it aside and move forward with it," Zarate said.

Parks was not the only athlete to finish the season with an accolade. Shea was named as the 2015 OVC Freshman of the Year. She finished in the top three for Southeast in every meet this season.

"The vast majority of our season went as expected," Lane said. His athletes had similar feelings.

"I'd say on the girls' side we definitely had a pretty strong season," O'Brien said. "We lost a lot of seniors from last year. Even with that, we brought in a lot of good freshmen recruits. Even with losing those girls last year we placed better at conference, and I don't think we had one bad race this year."

"I think we started out pretty strong," Zarate said on how the men's and women's teams performed this season. "We didn't finish conference as well as we wanted but, you know, we have had some adversity throughout the season and we've dealt with that pretty well."

Southeast began the season on a strong note on Sept. 5 at the Gabby Reuveni Early Bird in St. Louis, with the men and women placing first in the race with a combined seven top-10 finishes.

The men had four of those top-10 finishes, and had eight runners finish in the top half of the standings. Maton won the event, while Brown placed fourth overall, Plunkett finished sixth and Zarate took seventh.

The women had three athletes place in the top 10. Southeast was led by Shea, who finished third overall. Parks finished sixth and Sumner took seventh.

Southeast's second meet was the Commodore Classic on Sept. 19, hosted by Vanderbilt. The men and women both finished in 12th place. Maton led the Redhawks with a 20th place finish and was also named the OVC Male Runner of the Week after his performance. Brown finished in the top 50 while Zarate and Munie placed in the top 100.

The women were led by Parks, who finished 56th. Shea and Sumner also finished in the top 100.

According to the teams, their best meet came on Oct. 3 at the Chile Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in a race that consisted of 33 schools. The women took home ninth while the men finished 10th. A total of 436 runners competed on the women's side, and Parks, Shea, Sumner, O'Brien and freshman Celine Rone all placed in the top 100. For the men, Maton, Brown and Zarate all finished in the top 100 in a field of 466 competitors.

"I really enjoyed when we went to Chile Pepper," O'Brien said. "Everyone did really well there. We all had big [personal records] and everyone just really raced well, and we just came together as a team."

"It's always intimidating hearing names like LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss," Lane said. "They realized somewhere in the middle of that race that they weren't only running with these teams but beating a lot of them and something clicked. I've never seen a team finish a race the way they had in my time of coaching."

The final meet before the OVC Championships was the Bradley Classic on Oct. 16 in Peoria, Illinois. The men finished 17th, with Maton finishing 35th and Brown at 70th.

The women finished 16th, with four runners finishing in the top 70, led by Parks at 29th. She was followed by Shea, O'Brien and Sumner.

Both teams start practice at 6 in the morning, and Lane pushes his athletes both during practice and in the classroom.

"It's very important to us that we understand that athletics is something we can be proud of and take with us and we work hard towards that achievement, but ultimately we're here to further our lives," Lane said. "My goal is for every one of the athletes to graduate with a 3.0 [grade point average] or better, and so I push them towards that."

The team consists of many underclassmen, something Lane likes about the future of this team.

"I think the important thing for both sides is that we returned almost everyone off of our varsity," Lane said. "Going into next year we are going to be stronger and be able to improve upon what we did this year. The girls might be looking at a chance to challenge for a conference championship in a year. And the men are going to be able to move up quite a few places as we get back our few that we're missing, and we'll only lose one out of our top five."