The Illinois cross country teams showed improvements across the board at the Big Ten Championships on Friday. The men’s team took fifth with 133 points, while the women’s team finished eighth after posting 201 points. Both teams finished one place higher than they did at last year’s championships.
Senior Jack Roberts was named second-team All-Big Ten after finishing ninth with a time of 24:38.6. Roberts’ ninth-place finish is the highest individual finish for an Illini runner at the Big Ten Championships since current assistant coach Jon Davis took third in 2021.
Sophomore Alex Partlow finished No. 15 with a time of 24:47.8 and junior Anthony Maida finished No. 29 with a time of 25:15.7. Both Partlow and Maida improved by over 50 places from last year.
Rounding out the scoring for the men’s team were sophomore Brady Masters, who placed No. 42 with a time of 25:31.3, and senior William Merrick, who finished No. 45 at 25:33.4.
Junior Nicolas Dovalovsky, freshman Kyle Clark and senior Evan Cummins also ran, finishing Nos. 88, 107 111, respectively.
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For the women’s team, junior Sam Poglitsch took No. 22, finishing at 21:47.5, representing a 54-spot improvement from last year. Junior Halle Hill improved 74 places this year to finish 23rd with a time of 21:49.7.
Freshman Avril Andre set a personal best with a time of 22:02.5, good for No. 29 overall. Junior Maggie Gamboa took No. 49 with a time of 22:26.5 and sophomore Lydia Malacek rounded out the top five, finishing No. 103 with a time of 23:31.7.
Senior Breena Shreeves, who took No. 122, and sophomore Audrey Ginsberg, who finished No. 136, also ran for the Illini.
The men’s fifth-place finish represents their highest finish since 2017, when they took fourth, while the women’s eighth-place finish was their highest since taking sixth in 2021.
Wisconsin won the men’s championship for the sixth straight year while posting just 19 points. Four of the top five finishers were Badgers, including Bob Liking and Jackson Sharp who finished No. 1 and No. 2 for the second straight year. Liking’s victory gave him his third consecutive individual championship.
Michigan State posted 46 points to win the women’s championship for the fourth time in the last five years. Ohio State’s Addie Engel won her second straight individual championship.
The Illini’s next run comes at NCAA Midwest Regional in Stillwater, Oklahoma on Nov. 10.
