Five Orange and Blue runners broke their personal best 5K times in the Notre Dame Invitational on Friday, but it wasn’t enough, as the women’s cross country team only managed a tie for ninth place.

In her season debut, senior Katie Engel led the Illini, finishing eighth overall. She finished with a time of 16 minutes, 54 seconds, shattering her previous best of 17:31.

“I wasn’t thinking that much about time while I was running, but I knew that compared to previous years I had run that I was in much better shape,” Engel said. “There was a nice little surprise at the end.”

Along with Engel, freshman Kristin Sutherland (45th place), junior Theresa Brokaw (62), sophomore Chantelle Groenewoud (64) and junior Elizabeth Boyle (78) also ran personal bests.

“It’s a good sign of a lot of the hard work they put in and where we want to be throughout the season,” head coach Jeremy Rasumussen said. “Obviously, every time you go out you want to try to run a little bit faster and for everybody to go out and be able to do that, that’s always a good sign of things to come.”

Sutherland’s second-place finish out of the Illini marks an impressive beginning to her collegiate career and shows she’s ready to be an integral part of the team.

“This was a much bigger meet than the ISU meet, a lot more competition and stuff,” Sutherland said. “I (personal recorded) by like 20 seconds, so I was happy about that, but you can always do better.”

While many made their season debuts Friday, two major faces from last year’s team, junior Angela Bizzarri and sophomore Danelle Woods, were missing from the meet and are not expected to make their debuts until the Pre-National Meet on Oct. 18.

“We need to do a better job of making sure we set ourselves up for success,” Rasmussen said. “On Friday, they got out pretty slow, they were a bit more in the back of the pack, and it took a while for everyone to up the field. As we get to better and better meets throughout the year, they’re not going to have that luxury.”

The Orange and Blue will have two weeks off before a busy weekend with the Bradley Classic on Oct. 17, and Pre-Nationals the following day on Oct. 18.