The Illinois men’s cross-country team rounded out the regular season by hosting the Illini Open on Friday. Illini sophomore Sam Telfer finished second overall with a time of 25 minutes, 19 seconds. Jordan Hebert of Illinois, running unattached, won the race with a time of 24:57.
Hebert paced a field of 35, including teams from Eastern Illinois, Loyola and Bradley as well as 10 unattached runners, at the UI Arboretum.
The Illinois team consisted of only Telfer, sophomore Jereme Atchison and freshman Ryan Burgoon. Atchison finished fifth overall with a time of 25:37, while Burgoon took eighth with a time of 25:57.
“I was really excited with how we ran today,” head coach Jake Stewart said. “The first five finishers are guys that are affiliated with the team. We had a really good day.”
Unattached runners Joe Cowlin (25:24) and Alex Gold (25:31) finished third and fourth, respectively, giving Illinois runners a sweep of the top five.
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Alex Notton took 13th with a time of 26:16. Trevor Kuehr finished 18th with a time of 26:33, nearly placing every Illinois runner in the top half of the field. Both Notton and Kuehr ran unattached.
“Today I was trying to take some guys through at a certain pace,” said Hebert, a junior on the track team who is redshirting for cross-country this fall. “My main focus was to try to get them through the race, but you’ve always got to compete, whether it’s against the person ahead of you or the time.”
Hebert has been running unattached in races for Illinois this season in preparation for track and field season.
“For me, it’s different,” Hebert said. “This is the last time I’m running before track season, and that’s when it’s really going to count.”
Since Friday marked the end of the regular season, most of the Illinois cross-country team will not run competitively again until this spring. Twelve members of the cross-country team are also on the track and field roster.
“I think the younger guys probably ran with a little more urgency today, knowing that now we go back into training for a few months before the indoor track season starts,” Stewart said. “I think they want to use the momentum of running well here going into indoors and outdoors.”
For the members of the postseason team, the real competition will start this weekend at the Big Ten Championships in West Lafayette, Ind., on Nov. 3. The NCAA Midwest regional will be run on Nov. 15.
Thomas can be reached at [email protected].
