Alyssa Schneider led the Illinois women’s cross-country team in the team’s ninth-place finish at the Big Ten Championships on Sunday.
“Our goal was to be competitive and do better than we did last year,” head coach Scott Jones said. “We matched what we did last year.”
The Illini scored 241 points at the 6-kilometer meet, which was held at West Lafayette, Ind. Redshirt sophomore Alyssa Schneider led the team with a 28th-place finish and a time of 21 minutes, 45 seconds.
The team had highlighted the meet since the beginning of the season. There were many goals heading into the weekend, one of which was to have a quick start to put each runner in a good position for the middle and end of the meet.
“The race went out very fast, and I think we’re still not 100 percent prepared for that,” Jones said. “Now having been there, we’re a little bit more accustomed to that kind of race.”
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
The Illini also wanted to beat teams that had beaten them earlier in the season. They were able to beat Northwestern, who beat the Illini at the Purdue Invitational, but finished behind Purdue, who outran them at the Notre Dame Invitational.
Senior Katie Porada (22:12.6) and sophomore Amanda Fox (22:14.9) both improved on their finishes compared to last year’s conference championship performance finishing 44th and 46th, respectively. Freshman Hanna Winter (22:45.2) made her Big Tens debut and finished 71st. Sophomore Britten Petrey (22:52.8) finished up the scoring for the Illini at 75th.
Junior Rachel Irion (23:14.7) improved upon her finish at last year’s meet, placing 88th, while freshman Audrey Blazek (23:30.3) finished 96th in her Big Tens debut. Sophomore Natalie Wynn (24:11.2) and senior Stephanie Morgan (24:23.4) placed 100th and 102nd, respectively.
Michigan State won the team title with 43 points, its third in four years. The Spartans had three runners finish in the top 10. Last year’s champion Michigan (55) finished second and Minnesota (68) finished third. Michigan’s freshman Erin Finn won the individual title with a time of 20:48.3.
The Illini will have the weekend off as they will prepare for the NCAA Midwest Regionals in Ames, Iowa on Nov. 15.
Michal can be reached at [email protected] and @bennythebull94.
