Heading into the Big Ten Championships, Northwestern knew it would need its best race of the season to grab a top-nine finish.
Though some NU runners set personal bests, it was not enough for the Wildcats to avoid finishing at the bottom of the conference standings.
“The hope going in was ninth or tenth, but realistically we were 11th going into it,” coach April Likhite said. “I was hoping for a few better performances from a couple of our runners. The majority ran how they’ve been running all season, but at a big race like Big Tens, you sort of hope that you might get a little bit more out of them.”
The Cats finished in 11th place for the fourth time in the past five years. NU scored 326 points, well behind 10th-place Wisconsin’s 254 points. No. 18 Penn State, which hosted the event, scored 71 points to lead the field, narrowly defeating No. 13 Illinois and No. 15 Minnesota.
NU had three freshmen and three sophomores among its top seven runners. Leading the way was freshman Audrey Huth, who covered the 6K course in 22:11, an average of just under six minutes per mile, to finish 53rd.
Sophomore Hallie Busta was the second NU runner across the line, taking 74th place. Busta ran a personal best of 22:40.
“Looking at it as a team overall, we did alright,” Busta said. “We didn’t meet some of our goals, but it wasn’t a bad 11th. We walked away with a few good races.”
Senior Paulina Garcia was the next NU finisher, covering the course in 22:51 to take 77th place. Only seven seconds back of Garcia was freshman Allie Mayer, who finished in 81st place.
Rounding out the scoring for NU was sophomore Rachel Edwards in 82nd. Although this year’s conference meet was run on a faster course than last year’s race, Edwards’ more than one-minute improvement was a good sign, Likhite said.
“She definitely had the best individual performance on our team even though she wasn’t our top finisher,” she said. “She ran a smart, smooth race. She walked away very pleased with that performance. But in a sport like ours, you can away from a great race and when the team doesn’t do that well, it’s hard to really be happy with the meet.”
NU returns to action in two weeks at the NCAA Regionals. The Cats placed in the middle of the pack last season, finishing 14th out of 27 teams. Although NU is currently ranked outside of the region’s top-15 teams, it will be looking for another strong showing this year.
“We’re looking to be competitive,” Busta said. “It’s a larger field than 11 teams, and that should help us be more competitive.” [email protected]
