The Illinois women’s cross-country team hopes that season-long progress will lead to a strong finish at the Big Ten Championships on Sunday.

“It’s time to use the whole season and go after it,” sophomore Alyssa Schneider said. “I’ve been building up to this since the last Big Ten championship.”

The Illini have had the Big Ten Championships, which will be held in West Lafayette, Ind., circled on their calendar since the start of the season. They have used all their previous meets to help prepare for this one.

The team had its last intense practice before the meet Tuesday. They ran a fast 1,600-yard run, a 20-minute run and six 300-yard runs to finish it off. The team is looking positive heading into the big meet.

“We are excited where we are health-wise, fitness-wise, as well as attitude-wise,” head coach Scott Jones said. “Hopefully these elements will help us compete this Sunday.”

Jones is hoping for a middle-of-the-pack finish after Illinois finished ninth in last year’s meet. The Illini are focusing on beating teams that they have already beat, such as Purdue, and to beat the teams they’ve lost to this year, such as Ohio State and Northwestern. The young team looks up to teams in the Big Ten such as Michigan and Michigan State as teams they can aspire to be in a few years.

The nine runners competing for the Illini will be seniors Katie Porada and Stephanie Morgan, junior Rachel Irion, sophomores Alyssa Schneider, Amanda Fox, Britten Petrey, and Natalie Wynn and freshmen Hanna Winter and Audrey Blazek.

The team will have a few young and first-time runners at the meet; however, it doesn’t view that as a weakness. Runners such as Hanna Winter are excited to be participating in such a meet but the Illini will try to stay focused and continue to work hard as they have all season.

“I think we are ready and determined to do our best,” Winter said.

The top Illini runners are determined to help their team compete as well as seek top finishes for themselves. Both Porada and Schneider are hoping to finish in the top group of runners who will be competing.

“I’m hoping to compete well with the other top runners in the conference,” Schneider said. “I’m hoping to be in the first or second all-team Big Ten, which is finishing in the top 14.”

Porada will be competing after receiving her first Women’s Cross Country Big Ten Athlete of the Week award. She received the honor after winning the Illini Open last Friday. It was a last-minute decision that she would be running in the meet, as she wanted to get one more meet in before the Big Tens. She had hoped to run a faster start, maintain a consistent pace in the middle of the race, and finish strong and fast. She was able to obtain these goals and was very grateful for the award. 

“I’m very thankful to be honored,” Porada said. “It’s nice to see how all the hard work has paid off.”    

Michal can be reached at [email protected] and @bennythebull94.