Ali Olson
The Northern Illinois cross country team took fourth place Friday at the Illinois State Invitational at the Weibring Golf Course in Normal, Ill.
The Huskies placed four runners in the top 30, including a team-high 16th-place finish by sophomore Ali Olson. In the team standings, NIU placed ahead of Eastern Illinois and Northern Iowa.
“We had a number of positives today with personal bests and some improvements in our race execution,” said NIU head coach Greg Hipp.
“Today was another good step for us to get wins over EIU and UNI. However, we have some people missing and a few who haven’t had races at their level, yet. We’re on the right path and our focus is on November.”
Olson led the way for NIU, crossing the finish line at 18:19.24. Trailing Olson was fellow Wisconsinite Jamie Burr in 23rd with a time of 18:37.33.
Leah Raffety, the winner of last Friday’s NIU Open, claimed 26th place by running 18:39.72. Fourth for the Huskies was Claire McAuley, who ran 18:45.44 to finish in 29th place.
Carly Pederson rounded out NIU’s scorers with a run of 19:08.81, which was good enough for 46th place. Trailing Pederson were Meghan Heuer and Hannah Savage, who finished 58th and 59th with times of 19:24.35 and 19:27.32, respectively.
Chrissy Monson finished the 5K course with a time of 19:40.12 to take 64th and Rachel Shoemaker was 72nd at 20:03.74.
The Huskies return to competition in two weeks when they head north to Minnesota for the Roy Griak Invitational, scheduled Saturday, Sept. 28. For more information on NIU cross country and Huskie athletics, visit www.niuhuskies.com.
