ONU senior Emily Richards (Delaware/Hayes) finished 10th of 332 runners on Saturday afternoon to lead the Polar Bears at the Principia (Ill.) Cowbell Classic Pre-Nationals meet.
The Polar Bears (63-26 overall) finished 17th of 36 teams at the event.
Head coach Jason Maus improved his overall record at Ohio Northern to 749-342 and surpassed former head coach Brian Cole to become to winningest women's head cross country coach in school history.
"It's really nice to kind of check that goal off the list for me," said head coach Jason Maus. "It really means a lot to me and the girls were all really happy for me. It really means a lot to me and I'm glad I've been able to coach some really good teams while at ONU."
Northern was paced in the race by a career-day from Richards, who ran a career-fastest time of 21:50.49 to lead the Polar Bears across the finish line and crack the top-10 of individual finishers.
Junior Ashlie Baumann (Sterling Heights, Mich./Stevenson) finished second for Ohio Northern and 66th overall in 23:22.55, while junior Kristina Myers (Grove City/Central Crossing) rounded out the top-3 Polar Bear finishers, completing the race in a career-fastest time of 24:03.06.
"Emily had a great day," said Maus. "It was nice getting her back out here and she really made the most of it. Kristina had a career day and really stepped up and Ashlie really competed well. We were okay today overall. This is new territory for some of these girls. This was a tough course and the heat certainly played a role."
No. 1-ranked Johns Hopkins (Md.) won the team title with 74 points, No. 2 MIT was second with 76 points and No. 4 Geneseo State (N.Y.) was third with 141 points.
ONU finisshed behind only three unranked teams and defeated No. 32-ranked Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
The Polar Bears return to action Oct. 28 as they travel to Tiffin to compete in the OAC Championships.
