Women nation’s No. 5

By Erin Foley
October 5, 2005

Last Saturday’s upset of six nationally ranked teams in the Notre Dame Invitational has earned the Illinois women’s cross country team national recognition in the polls and its highest ranking in school history.

The Illini are ranked fifth in this week’s NCAA FinishLynx National Poll, which was released Tuesday.

“I’ll be honest, I was pretty surprised; I thought we would be a little lower,” head coach Karen Harvey said. “We’re just getting rewarded for a good day at Notre Dame. It definitely got the team fired up; so we’ll take it.”

The Illini, new to national rankings, have only appeared in the polls five times, three of which occurred earlier in the season. Going into last weekend’s race in South Bend, Ind., Illinois was ranked No. 20. Illinois finished in second in that race, and only lost to defending Big Ten champion Michigan. They most notably upset then-No.3 Notre Dame, No.10 Arkansas and No. 12 Wake Forest.

All eight of the Illini runners ran personal bests, as juniors Cassie Hunt and Stephanie Simms made their season debuts, finishing with times of 16:52 and 17:07, respectively, for the 5k race.

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The top-four teams in the FinishLynx poll include Duke, Michigan, Stanford and BYU.

“For me it’s very flattering to be up with the top distance programs in the country,” Harvey said. “Those four teams ranked ahead of us, they have traditionally been the powerhouses of running. That’s why I came to Illinois, I want to be the best, and so do they; they believe in Illinois.”

This season, the Illini, who are also ranked No. 1 in the WICCA Midwest Regional Regional rankings, have finished no lower than third place in their three meets and continue to build on last year’s success.

Harvey said she will be watching to make sure her team does not become complacent.

“We want to work even harder,” Harvey said. “We didn’t have a great day (at Notre Dame), but our goals remain the same – win Big Ten’s, win regionals and improve our place from Nationals last year. Whoever shows up on that day, we’re going to want to take them down.”