Seniors Stacia Beste and Christian Goy finished No. 4 and No. 14 respectively to pace the Illinois State cross country team in the womens and mens Blue Division races at the Notre Dame Cross Country Invitational in South Bend, Ind.
For the mens team, the Redbirds finished No. 8 overall out of the 18 teams competing in the Blue Division. Missouri Valley foe Northern Iowa, the only other Valley team participating in the mens race, finished No. 6 overall. Notre Dame was the Blue Division winner.
Besides Goy, senior Robert Breit and junior John Shaffer had good performances in the mens 8K race. Out of the 146 runners, Breit finished No. 28 overall with a time of 25:15, while Shaffer completed the race No. 55 with a time of 25:38.
The womens team finished the meet No. 14 out of the 17 teams that participated in the Blue Division. The only other competing MVC team was Northern Iowa, who finished the meet at No. 16. Notre Dame was also the Blue Division winner of the womens meet.
Freshman Laura Kennedy and Diana Ainsley were the next two Redbirds to finish the 5K race behind Beste. Out of the 132 runners, Kennedy finished No. 41 with a time of 18:31, while Ainsley was No. 91 with a time of 19:10.
For their next meet, the Redbirds will have the opprotunity to debut their new course at the University Farm as they host the Illinois State Invitational on Friday, October 12. This meet was originally scheduled for Saturday, September 15, but was rescheduled due to the national tragedies of September 11.
