The Iowa State women’s cross country team turned in an eighth-place finish at the Big 12 championships Saturday at Texas A&M University.

The Cyclones totaled 186 points as Colorado won the team title with 62 points to outdistance Kansas State who placed second with 77.

“We ran better than a couple of weeks ago, but we’re not where we want to be yet,” said Cyclone coach Dick Lee.

Andrea Crapisi was the first Cyclone across the finish line in 23rd place with a time of 18:00. Alienor Gilchrist followed in 28th place in 18:05, and Emily Martini finished 31st in 18:08.

The Cyclone top three runners had trouble keeping position over the middle portion of the race but ran much better down the stretch.

“Our front three ran solid races but they thought they could’ve done better. They lost positioning in the middle of the race and they all felt they lost 5-10 places in that stretch,” said Lee. “The girls did a good job moving up late in the race but we had fallen too far behind. We’re going to have to work on our positioning.”

Laurie Meythaler was the fourth Cyclone finisher in 51st place with a time of 18:35. Rounding out the Cyclones’ finishers was their trio of freshmen as Kelly Brinkman finished 54th place in 18:38, Jessica Huff came in 60th in 18:48, and Ashley Drahn placed 70th in 19:18.

“Our young freshmen ran solid races again. This was their first conference tournament, and that can be intimidating, but they went out and did well,” said Lee.

The Cyclones had been battling injuries and sickness over the last couple of weeks, and Lee feels they’re on the way back to being full strength.

“We’ve had some girls out with the flu or injuries and they’re just starting to get back to being at full strength again,” said Lee. The regional meet is coming up in two weeks and hopefully we’ll be healthy for that one. The girls still feel they got a shot at qualifying for nationals.”

The Cyclones compete in an NCAA regional meet in two weeks at Champaign, Illinois.