Arkansas' men's and women's teams ran to top-10 finishes Saturday at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Louisville, Ky.
The Arkansas men, led by sophomore Jack Bruce's 23rd-place finish, took sixth in the team race with 244 points.
Senior Dominique Scott took third for the UA women, leading the Razorbacks to a ninth-place finish with 276 points.
Syracuse won the men's team title with 82 points. Oregon junior Edward Cheserek won the individual title, running the 10,000-meter course in 28 minutes, 45.8 seconds.
New Mexico won the women's team championship with 49 points. Notre Dame senior Molly Seidel won the individual title, running the 6,000-meter course in 19:28.60.
Arkansas had its highest finish in the men's race since 2006, when the Razorbacks were fifth. They came into the meet ranked No. 8 in the coaches poll and improved 22 spots from last year's 28th-place finish.
"We always try to do better than what people predict," Arkansas men's Coach Chris Bucknam said. "I'm very, very pleased and proud of how these guys competed all year.
"From 28th place last year to sixth, a lot of credit goes to our guys for all the hard work they put in. We're going in the right direction."
Bucknam said he was surprised by Bruce, who ran a time of 30:15.30.
"I thought maybe he'd have a top-100 finish against this level of competition, but he just ran great," Bucknam said. "I don't think he ran out of his head at all. He just keeps getting better every week.
"He approached this race the same way he had the others all year, and that's to keep grinding and sooner or later your body's going to adapt to it."
Other finishers for Arkansas were junior Frankline Tonui (40th in 30:29.60), senior Gabe Gonzalez (48th in 30:31.70), sophomore Austen Dalquist (89th in 30L53.10), senior Cale Wallace (112th in 31:03.90), junior Christian Heymsfield (170th in 31:36.70) and sophomore Alex George (176th in 31:40.70).
Bruce became the seventh Razorback to be the team's top finisher in seven meets this season.
"There's no other team in the country like us," Bucknam said. "We haven't had a true front runner, but different guys have always stepped up, and Jack stepped up today.
"I've never had anything like that happen in my career. It was a true team effort all year long in that regard."
Scott, who ran 19:40.90, had the highest finish for an Arkansas female at the NCAA meet since 1999, when Amy Yoder was second and Lilli Kleinmann was third.
"Dominique ran absolutely brilliant," Arkansas women's Coach Lance Harter said. "She just ran up against two other great athletes who had a little bit better days than her."
Seidel, Boise State freshman Allie Ostrander -- who took second in 19:33.60 -- and Scott broke away from the pack early in the race. Seidel and Ostrander then began pulling away from Scott with about 800 meters left.
"That's when they put a move in and she didn't cover it," Harter said.
Scott earned All-American honors for the third consecutive year after taking sixth last year and 28th in 2013.
Other finishers for Arkansas were freshman Devin Clark (48th in 20:31.70), junior Regan Ward (103rd in 20:50), sophomore Kelsey Schrader (111th in 20:56.50), freshman Sydney Brown (178th in 21:22.40) and junior Valerie Reina (217th in 21:54.80).
Harter said the Razorbacks, who came into the meet ranked No. 3, were in a starting box to the far right of the starting line and several runners were slowed down on a sharp tight right turn 600 meters into the race.
"We just got clobbered," Harter said. "It was such a mad scramble, some of our kids literally had to stop and walk a while.
"We had to play catchup the whole race, and we moved up well, but we just gave too much away at the start against comparable athletes."
Arkansas had its second consecutive top 10 finish after taking fifth last year.
"I knew in August I had an ace up front with Dominique and then about 10 question marks," Harter said. "Overall, the kids did a great job.
"We've got a lot of young ones back. Unfortunately, we're going to lose Dominique. I just hope there's another one like her somewhere down the road."
Sports on 11/22/2015