The Marquette women's cross country team wrapped up its first season in the Big East with its sixth consecutive trip to the NCAA national championship race Monday afternoon.

While the Golden Eagles are happy to be just one of 10 schools to have participated in the last six championships, they cannot be entirely happy with their 29th place finish in the 31-team race.

"We certainly (were) hoping to finish higher today, but to qualify for nationals, you have to be one of the top teams in the country," head coach Dave Uhrich said in a statement. "We're proud of that. It was on of those races where we rank OK, but in order to finish among the top teams, you need to have a great race."

Stanford took first place in the team competition with 146 points. Quite a few places behind was Marquette with 660 points.

Notre Dame had the best finish for a Big East team, coming in at seventh place with 252 points. Providence (16th, 413), Villanova (21st, 497) and Georgetown (27th, 613) were the other teams that represented the conference along with Marquette.

Johanna Nilsson of Northern Arizona turned in the best individual time, finishing the six-kilometer race with a time of 19:34.

One minute, 41 seconds and 111 places later, Michaela Courtney crossed the finish line with the Golden Eagle's best time.

Cassie Peller followed Courtney in 142nd place, with a time of 21:29 and Susie Emond finished in 21:51 to come in 175th place and round out the top three Marquette performers.

Heidi Lindeman (201st, 22:07), Tara Hinke (204th, 22:09), Terri Emond (230th, 22:40) and Shannon Oster (249th, 23:31) were the other Marquette runners to compete in the championship.

With three of their top four performers returning next year, Emond is the only senior, the Golden Eagles can look to improve on a relatively successful season and try to not just make their seventh straight championship race, but place a bit higher than 29th.