TERRE HAUTE, Ind. In the most competitive meet of the season, the Kansas State cross country teams managed to set numerous career record times for both the men and the women on a beautiful day in Indiana. 

Six of the seven women’s runners set career-best times on their way to 23^rd place out of 38 teams in the Blue race; Stanford took home first place with 102 team points. Colorado runner Jenny Barringer set a Wabash Valley Family Sports Center course record of 19:48.3 in the White race.

For the second consecutive meet Liliani Mendez paced the K-State women with a time of 21:11.5, good for 49^th place. Newcomer Beverly Ramos continued her debut season as a Wildcat, finishing 59^th with a time of 21:19.5. Junior Emily Dittemore stood out among the Wildcat runners by clocking a time of 22:19.8, nearly one minute faster than her pervious 6K career-best.

“Emily stepped up big for us today,” head coach Michael Smith said. “She ran a minute faster than she has ever run before, so that helped us out a lot. It was coming, the way that she has been running lately. You knew that at some point that she was going to have a breakthrough.”

Alex Umberger paced men’s team for the seventh straight time, dating back to last season’s Big 12 Championships, by finishing 32^nd in the open race and recording a career-best 8K time of 25:19.8. Junior Colin Swaney ran his first race of the season and recorded a career-best 8K time of 25:33.9. Danny Schneider, Tyler Fennema, Casey Johnson and Clinton MacDonald also recorded career-best 8K times.

“We have been training quite well so they are quite a bit better than they have ever been,” Coach Smith said. ”More importantly today was a perfect day to run. Everyone was running fast because the conditions were great. It was really a good day to run and our people ran well as a result.”

The Wildcats will look to improve last season’s pair of 12th-place finishes at the Big 12 Championships as they travel to Lubbock, Texas for this season’s conference championship on Oct. 26.