Oct. 3, 2011
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CHICAGO — The University of Iowa women’s cross country team took the title at the Sean Earl Lakefront Invite Saturday afternoon with a total of 27 points. The Hawkeyes are ranked No. 27 nationally and finished the 5K race faster than 52 other teams, including Big Ten rivals Illinois, Michigan State and Wisconsin.
Freshman Kayla Beattie finished first for Iowa and third overall, crossing the line in 17:29. Beattie was followed by seniors Brooke Eilers (4th, 17:30), Betsy Flood (5th, 17:33) and McKenzie Melander (6th, 17:37). Juniors Kelsey Hart and Megan Ranegar took ninth and 10th, respectively with times of 17:39. Graduate student Mareike Schrulle rounded out the Hawkeye lineup, finishing 12th overall at 17:54.
“The meet went very well,” head coach Layne Anderson said of his team. “It was exactly what we wanted. We won the meet and scored 27 points. We ran as pack, which was our game plan going in. We didn’t want to worry about particular people winning the meet. We wanted to stay together and finish as close as possible, and we did that with our top-six finishing within 10-11 seconds of each other.”
Iowa will run again Oct. 14 at the Wisconsin Inter-Regional meet in Madison, Wis. The meet is the final run for the Iowa women before the Big Ten Championships, which will be contested Oct. 30 in Champaign, Ill.