The IU women’s cross-country team made history when the most recent National Coaches' Poll was released Tuesday.
After tying its best ranking in program history at No. 18 in last week’s poll, the Hoosiers managed to one-up themselves by moving to No. 14 this week. This is the second week in a row that the women’s team has climbed in the rankings after rising eight spots last week.
This spike comes after an impressive performance in Friday’s Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown at Boston College, in which IU finished second overall and only seven points behind then-No. 7 Providence.
It’s been a season-long climb so far for the women’s team. Friday’s meet in Boston was the first meet of the year for reigning All-American junior Katherine Receveur and marked the first time the Hoosiers have had their entire team together this season. It turned out to be a big factor in putting the team in the historic position in which it now finds itself.
“Boston was the first race we had Katherine, and that was really nice because we always want to see how we look as a team as a whole,” junior Maggie Allen said. “I think it’s important for us to know that we’re in full season mode now, and we need to use each race as an opportunity to better ourselves and better our ranking.”
On the men’s side, IU slipped six spots from No. 21 to No. 27 after a third-place finish in Boston behind two ranked opponents in Syracuse and Big Ten Conference rival Illinois. It resulted in the Fighting Illini's leapfrogging the Hoosiers in the polls, rising eight spots to No. 19.
Much like the women’s team, the men’s squad is just now getting its full team back into competition after sophomore Bryce Millar was hampered by an early-season injury. Fellow sophomore Kyle Mau said he sees that boding well for the team moving forward.
“Boston was a race I think we can kind of build off of,” Mau said. “We’ve had a really good training block lately, and now we just need to go out and execute what we’ve been doing in practice.”
Coach Ron Helmer said he was pleased with both teams’ rankings and believes they give his runners an extra incentive to keep improving as the season inches closer to the postseason. They won’t have much time to relax as they prepare for the Sam Bell Invitational in Bloomington on Saturday.
“I think the women’s ranking was generous but fair, and I think they recognize we have some really competitive front-runners,” Helmer said. “As for the men’s team, it’s probably fair, but we think we are better than that. If we get ourselves in the national meet, I think we’d place better than that, but we’re still young, and we’ll just have to see what we can do as we move forward.”
