Dekalb- The NIU cross country season is off and running with the Huskie Challenge event Friday at 5:30 p.m., featuring teams from the surrounding Chicagoland area.

The Huskies had a strong showing at the meet as a team and had several top individual performances. The Huskies won the meet with an overall score team score of 22 and University of Illinois at Chicago coming in second with 46.

Huskies sophomore Noelle Maire won the meet with a time of 15:41.

“It’s a pretty good feeling obviously, but I wasn’t expecting to win it all,” Maire said. “I just went out and did the best I could do.”

Sophomore Melissa Ricci also excelled at the meet, finishing third with a time of 15:56.

Both Maire and Ricci said the season goal is to win the Mid-American Conference and be more unified as a team.

“We have to take it meet by meet for sure,” Ricci said. “We have high goals for each meet, and we have a very good team this year that has a lot depth and talent.”

Coach Adrian Myers said he has high expectations for the upcoming season, not only for the team, but for the individual runners.

“Once you get top three of the conference, which I think we have done, I think you have to set your aspirations every year is to run for a championship,” Myers said.

On the individual side of things, Myers is looking for big time improvement from junior Vivian Overbeck and more success for sophomore Ashley Tutt.

“I expect [Tutt] to run for a conference title, to run for a national championship qualification and I expect to see her to run for the USA national team during a national championships year.

“[Overbeck] as a freshman was one the top freshman in the conference and went through somewhat of a lull,” Myers said. ”Right now she’s going to step up and make a big difference for us.”

The Huskies next meet is on Sept. 15 for the John Nichols Invitational at Indiana State in Terre Haute, Ind.