FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Twenty-three schools fielded full teams here at the Chile Pepper Festival cross country meet on Saturday.

However, only one took home the plaque awarded to the team champion: the College of Saint Mary.

The Flames used a balanced effort to claim top honors by a nine-point margin over runner-up Butler (Kan.) Community College, 79-88.

"People who are not familiar with the sport really can't understand how difficult it is to win a meet,'' CSM Coach Derek Fey said. "There is only one team champion out of 23 today.''

The Flames did it despite Butler placing its first three runners ahead of CSM leader Kara Muller. The freshman and reigning Great Plains Athletic Conference women's cross country runner of the week placed 10^th in 19 minutes, 4.2 seconds over the 5,000-meter course.

Freshman Carly Henderson took 14^th (19:33.6), junior Corinne Mead placed 24^th (19:55.4), senior Brooke Wigdahl was 25^th (20:05.1) and senior Autumn Simons ended 32^nd (20:40.2) to complete the scorers.

It was a true team victory.

"The live commentators couldn't figure out how we could have won the meet, when Butler had three runners ahead of our first, Kara,'' Fey said. "Again, this is a team sport. Five runners count for a score. Our second through ninth runners ran huge races and that's how you win a meet like this.''

Also for CSM, Becka Karnik was 42^nd (20:52.9), Josie Karnik was 43^rd (20:58.1), Yenifer Juan Jesus was 47^th (21:05.2), Mira Fosmer was 50^th (21:11.2), Natalie Briggs was 53^rd (21:18.6), Kaitlyn Thalman was 66^th (21:46.4) and Kiley Craft was 68^th (21:58.2).

"When you are receiving votes for the national polls, you have to win races that you are supposed to win, and they accomplished that today,'' Fey said. "But that doesn't make it any less sweet. The ride home is going to be fun.''