The Illinois State mens and womens cross country teams each earned at least a share of first place at the Illinois State Cross Country Invitational. The Redbirds finished in a first place tie with Missouri Valley Conference preseason favorite Northern Iowa in the womens 5K race. Illinois State beat Northern Iowa, also the Valley preseason favorite, in the following race to win the mens meet.
The opportunity to come out and run on own course (University Farm) is unbelievable, said head coach Jeff Pigg. This is a great situation for us and we are anxiously looking forward to hosting the conference championships here. Our kids really had an excellent meet and it was nice to see how we stacked up against some good conference teams.
In the womens race, senior Stacia Beste claimed first place overall with a time of 18:01.02 out of 29 runners. Freshman Diana Ainsley was the next Redbird to finish snagging second place overall with a time of 19:15.92. Sophomore Jene Klostermann and freshman Kelly Forst and Leah Smith also had good races for Illinois State with No. 6 (19:45.46), No. 13 (20:09.05) and No. 17 (20:22.27) finishes respectively.
Stacia looked very strong today and Diana and Jene had the best races of their careers, said Pigg. We decided not to run one of our top runners Laura Kennedy today because she has a sore throat and we were still able to come away with a first place tie against the conference preseason favorite. Kelly (Forst) and Leah (Smith) are really showing a lot of improvement and ran very well today.
In the mens 8K race, junior Christian Goy finished in third place overall with a time of 25:21.76 out of 38 runners. Senior Robert Breit and sophomore Walter Ogola were next to finish for Illinois State with fifth (25:35.87) and sixth place (25:46.44) finishes respectively. Junior John Shaffer received seventh place overall with a time of 26:08.16 and senior Kevin Bailey was the fifth Redbird to finish the race in ninth place with a time of 26:15.78.
Our goal at the start of the season was to keep getting better each week and I think that is happening, said Pigg. We continue to gain momentum and we lined up today and beat a tough Northern Iowa team with the conference championships just two weeks away. Christian did a great job today and Robert looked strong too. Walter had one of the best races of his career and John and Kevin are running very well for us.
The Redbirds will take a week off and prepare to host the Valley Cross Country Championships on October 27.
