On Friday, NIU cross country traveled to Columbia, Missouri to compete in the Gans Creek Classic, hosted by the University of Missouri .
The Huskies sent seven athletes to compete in the women’s 6k race in a field of 236 athletes.
NIU took 25th place in the large field of 26 teams with a score of 677 points, beating out the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Stanford University won the invitational with an outlier score of 53 points with freshman Hanne Thompson taking a third place finish. Stanford finished 89 points ahead of second place Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.
The Huskies ran a 6k race for the first time this season, with freshman Amelia Ojeda finishing as the Huskies’ front runner.
Ojeda has been the top finisher for the Huskies in each of their three invitationals this season. Ojeda finished in 101st place with a time of 22:17.8.
Junior Grace Hanson competed in her first invitational with the Huskies and was NIU’s second-best finisher in 174th place with a time of 23:28.5.
Hanson is in her first season at NIU after transferring from the University of Oklahoma, and is one of two upperclassmen on the Huskies’ roster.
Freshman Claire Helmila finished in 194th place at Gans Creek with a time of 23:57.2.
Sophomore Varri Higgins was the fourth Huskie to finish at the 6k race and finished 213th in the overall standings. Higgins’ final time for the race was 24:29.1.
The Huskies final three athletes to finish the event all finished within 20 seconds of each other, with freshman Ariel Hernandez being the first to finish in 220th place. Hernandez’s final time for the event was 24:58.6.
Freshman Liliana Camargo finished just two places behind Hernandez in 222nd, also finishing less than two seconds behind Hernandez with a time of 25:00.5.
The final Huskie to finish at Gans Creek was freshman Isabella Grieder, who finished in 229th place with a time of 26:12.6.
“Tough day battling the heat for us today,” head coach Juan Carrillo said. “I think our team fitness is better than what the results showed today. We’ve had some solid training the last two weeks to get us better ready for racing. Not the result we were looking for as a team but I’m excited to see the team improve the second half of the season. The next two weeks we’ll focus on specific training to prepare us for the championship season.”
The Huskies next invitational will be on Oct. 17 in Peoria, Illinois for the Bradley Pink Classic hosted by Bradley University.
