Women, Men Both Runner-Up At Big Ten Champs

SAVOY, Ill. – Washington made a big impression in its first Big Ten Cross Country Championships, taking second in a pair of exciting team battles. Both teams had its top-five scorers finish in the top-20 at the Orange and Blue Golf Course where Illinois played host to the conference meet. Eleven Huskies walked away with All-Big Ten honors in UW’s conference debut.
 
The women’s race quickly turned into essentially a head to head battle between Washington and Oregon, as the Big Ten newcomers were far outpacing the rest of the teams. The Huskies turned in a truly stellar run, with three in the top-10, six in the top-20, and just 11 seconds separating their 1-5 finishers to score 60 points. But Oregon had the top two finishers today and five in the top-12 to win with just 33 points. 11^th-ranked Wisconsin was a distant third with 133 points.
 
Chloe Foerster made a big kick to climb up to sixth-place to lead the women in a time of 19:34. Foerster was 27^th at 2k before she began moving up and she still went from 13^th to 6^th over the final kilometer. Julia David-Smith was three spots back in ninth in 19:39 and India Weir came in right beside her in 10^th-place in the same time.
 
Maeve Stiles was 17^th overall in 19:44 and Sophie O’Sullivan was 18^th in 19:45, as she passed 11 runners over the final 1K. Amina Maatoug rounded out the top-20 in 20^th in 19:48, moving up throughout as she was back in 50^th at the 2K split. Ella Borsheim was the No. 7 Husky finisher in 45^th overall.
 
“I thought our women ran great today, they closed hard, they had 14 seconds one to six, so they’re improving and getting better every week,” said Head Coach Maurica Powell. “But we got beat by a good team today with two really low sticks in almost a dual meet format. But we ran really well and I think we still have a shot here to be a top-four team at the end of the season which is what we’re trying to do. We’ve been good on that Wisconsin course, so we’ll keep doing what we’re doing and try to get a little better in two weeks.”
 
In the men’s 8,000-meters, 9^th-ranked Wisconsin took it out aggressively from the start and the Huskies were running in fourth at the halfway point, a full 50 points behind Oregon and 47 points behind Wisconsin.
 
At 7,000-meters, with just 1K to go, the Badgers still led the Huskies by 42 points but UW had closed…