By Joe Vanden Acker, Director of Athletic Media Relations
    GREEN LAKE, Wis. -- The stuff of Jason Fast's dreams became a wonderful reality on Saturday.
    The Lawrence University cross country coach saw both of his teams win the Midwest Conference Championships on Saturday at Tuscumbia Country Club, and the Vikings took home an individual title as well. The Vikings made history today as this marks the first time in school history that both teams have won the conference title in the same year. 
    "I keep waiting for my alarm to go off, and it's the morning of the conference championships," Fast said with a laugh after the meet.
    The Lawrence women continued a stellar season by taking the title with 42 points, 20 points better than second-place Grinnell College. It was the first conference title for the Lawrence women since 2001.
    "Our front four really set the tone," Fast said of the women's team. "We were stacked up there and credit those ladies, they have been rock solid all year long."
    Cristyn Oliver won the title for the Vikings as she covered the 6,000-meter course in 22:30.72. She won the title by 48 seconds over Lake Forest College's Madeline Morland.
    "Cristyn had a humongous lead right after the mile mark and just kept cruising," Fast said. "She's been like a machine. Once she hits the course, there's no stopping her."
    Oliver is Lawrence's first individual conference champion on the women's side since Julie Liebich took the title in 1998. 
    Lawrence then put three more runners in the top eight as Edythmae Frodl was fifth in 23:51.61, Riley Winebrenner was sixth in 23:54.93 and Althea Foster was eighth in 24:06.04. Oliver, Frodl, Winebrenner and Foster all earned all-conference honors for the Vikings.
    Senior Leah Hawksford completed the scoring for Lawrence as she took 22nd in 25:09.63.
    The men's race was tighter as Lawrence took the team title with 46 points, just four points better than Cornell College.
     "I was telling them during the race that we're doing it," Fast said of his men's team. "They knew we were doing well and when they finished, they knew we ran really well. They had their best race of the year when they needed it."
    Rookie Collin Beyer led the Lawrence contingent by placing third over the 8,000-meter race in 26:15.44, and Cornell's Aaron Davidson was first in 25:43.49.
    Fellow rookie Sam Brewer was next for the Vikings as he finished fifth in 26:47.92. Adam Bruce followed in ninth place with a time of 27:13.60. Billy Daniels grabbed 14th place in 27:26.85, and rookie Owen West was 15th in 27:28.61. All five runners scoring for Lawrence earned all-conference honors.
    West ended up being the key for the Vikings as he ran a personal record by roughly 90 seconds, and that helped the Vikings edge Cornell for their first conference title since 2011. 
    "We've been talking all week about how the conference meet every year is the last time this team all runs together," Fast said. "We wanted to make it special, and the team really embraced that all week. Both of them winning, I keep pinching myself. Today could not have gone better for us."