The Illinois women’s track and field team put forth impressive performances at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa, to claim the inaugural Hy-Vee Cup trophy.

The Illini won three of the five relays that count toward the Hy-Vee trophy, amassing 42 points total, 23 ahead of runner-up Ohio State. Illinois won the 400-meter, 1600-meter and 1600-meter sprint medley relays while coming in second in the 3200-meter relay and fifth in the distance medley.

The team had set out not focused on individual events, and more so on emphasizing team camaraderie.

“We’re really excited about (winning the trophy),” head coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said. “We wanted to win all five events, and that was our goal. The girls (on the relay teams) didn’t compete in individual events and that made it even more of a team atmosphere. It was really exciting for our team to come together like this.”

The Illini saw success in Thursday’s events with junior Meghan Frigo, senior Courtney Yaeger and sophomore Alyssa Schneider all breaking into the top 10 in school history in their respective distance events. Frigo ran a time of 36 minutes, 15.85 seconds in the 10,000-meter race, earning her the eighth-best time in school history. Yaeger and Schneider completed the 5,000-meter race in 16:26.24 and 16:27.43, respectively, earning themselves the fourth- and fifth-place finishes in the race and in the Illinois history books.

Apart from coming in second in the 4×800, the team was also able to break a long-standing school record with a time of 8:37.02. The team of junior Amanda Duvendack, sophomore Chloe Schmidt, junior  Ahlivia Spencer and junior Samantha Murphy were able to shatter the record that had stood for 20 years by almost 6 seconds.

“It was really important for us to (break the record) now because we have been talking about it all season,” Buford-Bailey said. “We knew we had a really good middle-distance group, and we thought we’d be able to do it at the Texas Relays. We got a little too anxious and it didn’t happen there, but we’re really glad we finally got it at Drake.”

Sophomore Ashley Spencer participated in three relays, all of which Illinois won. Buford-Bailey said Spencer’s influence on the team’s performances could not be understated. 

“Ashley was not a piece to the puzzle, but the key piece to the puzzle for us in those relays,” she said.

In the field, the only shining light was senior Marissa Golliday’s personal-best mark of 1.72 meters in the high jump, which earned her a joint eighth-place ranking and the 10th best time in school history. Aside from Golliday, however, others fell short from their usual marks.

“I think (not being able to practice outdoors) is more detrimental to them (than to track athletes),” Spencer said. “With sprinters and runners, we have more ways we can adjust, but with field events, you can’t change much because they are based on power and technique. When you have elements fighting against that, there isn’t much you can do. We’re going to be getting some decent weather coming up, so it will be good for them to get outdoors leading up to Big Tens.” 

Lanre can be reached at [email protected] and @WriterLanre.