The No. 12 Northwestern cross country team traveled to Loyola Chicago on Friday for the Lakefront Invitational. The field included 17 teams from across the country, including Virginia and Minnesota, which entered the race ranked 20th and 24th, respectively. The ’Cats took home third place, with three runners inside the top 24 and all five scoring runners finishing in the top 40.
Senior Ava Criniti crossed the finish line first for the purple and white, officially finishing in 9th place. In her second
top-10 finish of the season, she recorded a season-best time of 19:42 — more than three minutes faster than her first finish of the season three weeks ago in Wisconsin.
Cary Drake finished second for Northwestern and 16th overall in 19:49. The junior’s last kilometer of 3:10.3 was the fastest closing kilometer on the team, netting her 3 spots from 19th to 16th. The ‘Cats as a team gained 6 places between the 5th and 6th kilometer, securing third place overall, which they held by only 3 points at the start of the last kilometer.
Graduate student Skye Ellis and senior Jackie Holman finished 23rd and 35th, respectively. Ellis was the last Cat to post a sub-20 minute time, finishing in 19:58. Holman came in on the other side of the 20-minute mark, just behind, with 20:09.
Sophomore Eliza Nicholson rounded out the scoring for the Wildcats with a time of 20:12. Nicholson’s first kilometer put her in 70th place before a race-long rally brought her to 40th, securing the podium finish for the Wildcats.
Junior Kailey Zagst and graduate student Sophie Magson rounded out Northwestern’s top 7. Although neither counted for points, both finished with season bests. 20:22 for Magson and 21:29 for Zagst. NU finished with 123 points, edging out fourth-place Vanderbilt by 27 and narrowly missing out on second place, falling just 11 points short of Minnesota. The Virginia Cavaliers won the race with 71 points.
The Wildcats get two weeks off before they travel to Madison, Wisconsin, on October 9th for the Nuttycombe Invitational. There they will face 33 other teams, including No. 2 New Mexico and No. 4 Iowa State.
