GAMBIER, Ohio -- Every year since 2014, the Kenyon College Ladies cross country team improved its standing at North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) championship races. After a third-place showing last year, the Ladies head into the 2018 campaign ready to make a run at the conference's big guns.

Four of the five runners who scored at last year's conference meet return to the Ladies' lineup, as do four of the five runners who scored at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship. Leading that list of runners are sophomore Eleanor Tetreault and junior Grace Moses. Tetreault was first to the line for Kenyon in three of the Ladies' last four races. She placed third at the conference championship and was named the 2017 NCAC Freshman of the Year. Moses led the Ladies in two races, including the regional championship, where she claimed 46th place among 247 runners.

That one-two punch is backed with plenty of depth. Seniors Quinn Harrigan and Andrea Ludwig, as well as sophomore Cortney Johnson, consistently scored points for the Ladies a year ago. Johnson won the annual Kenyon Tri-Meet and placed second at the Otterbein Invitational. Harrigan logged top-30 finishes in five races, while Ludwig accomplished the same feat in three races, including a 17th-place finish at the conference championship.

Further reinforcements could come from sophomore Sophie Niekamp or from an incoming freshman class of seven. Niekamp had a pair of top-25 finishes a season ago and, with further advancement, could figure into the Ladies' scoring.

Of all the runners who recorded points for the Ladies last season, only one did not return to the team for the 2018 schedule, which gets underway Friday in the Kenyon Tri-Meet, an annual event in which the Ladies host teams from Ohio Wesleyan University and Mount Vernon Nazarene University.