The Illinois women’s cross-country team will look to end the year on a high note at the Hoosier Invitational on Friday.
The Illini will have five runners likely compete for the last time this season, Illinois coach Jeremy Rasmussen said.
“You always want to end the season on a great note,” Rasmussen said. “The biggest goal is to carry success over to the end of the year and then roll into the indoor (track) season.”
Illinois will be evenly-matched this weekend, as it will compete against Purdue, Indiana, Indiana State, Butler and Oakland. The Illini finished ninth at the Big Ten Championships last week, but the Hoosiers placed only one spot ahead. The Boilermakers were 11th.
“It’s going to be a pretty competitive race, and to succeed, we have to continue to work on the things we have been practicing all year,” Rasmussen said. “Putting yourself in the position to race the race you want to race and giving yourself an opportunity to finish where you want to finish (is important). Being super smart about it, not going out super fast but not going out so slow and conservative that it’s too much build back to get to the front.”
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The Illini will field a small yet diverse squad as senior Meagan Hynes, juniors Rachel Irion and Amanda Zamora, sophomore Colette Falsey and freshman Michelle Frigo will run.
“(The team is looking) good so far, two of them (Hynes and Irion) are coming off running Big Tens last weekend and ran real close to their PRs, and Colette is coming off two weeks ago running a PR so we’re really looking forward those girls getting an opportunity to go back out. It’s going to be 5K this week, and we want them to try to run a new PR,” Rasmussen said.
Two weeks ago at the Illini’s 5K course, Falsey won the Illinois Open with a time of 18 minutes, 46 seconds.
“We have been tapering our mileage the past couple weeks to get our legs feeling good. Friday is going to be good opportunity to go out and run a personal best,” Falsey said.
Both Rasmussen and Hynes said for the team to have success, it must run together and continue to work toward everything it has practiced.
“I think (Friday) is mostly about working together out there,” Hynes said. “It’s one last opportunity to go after season goals that have yet to be met. If we just trust what we’ve done up to this point and work well together, we are going to run really well.”
Nicholas can be reached at [email protected] and @IlliniSportsGuy.
