Illinois State Full Results

NORMAL, Ill. -- Competing against several regionally ranked teams, the Northern Illinois University women's cross country team took fourth place at the Illinois State Invite on Friday evening in Normal, Ill.

The Huskies were led by the top-10 finishes of Kelsey Hildreth (Byron, Ill./Byron), Katie Bristow (Lerwick, Scotland/Glasgow Caledonian) and Ericka Hibser (Lewiston, Ill./Lewiston). Hildreth took second place overall -- crossing the line behind only Illinois' Alyssa Schneider for the second consecutive race -- in a 5K time of 17:27.9. Bristow impressed with her fourth-place effort in 17:56.5, as did Hibser's time of 18:08.7 that earned her seventh place in the meet.

With nine teams racing at the Illinois State Invite on Friday, including four Midwest regionally ranked teams in Loyola-Chicago, Illinois State, Illinois and Iowa, NIU was the only program to place three runners in the top 10. That impressive result helped the Huskies finish in the top half of a quality field of local schools.

NIU head coach Adrian Myers was pleased with the performance of his squad on Friday and noticed the potential that the Huskies hold going forward.

"It was a really good outing. We're moving in the right direction. Now we want to get everyone to fire on the same day," Myers said. "To be competing with regionally ranked teams like we did today is great for the program. We had a lot of people step up to fill important roles, especially Taylor Perkins, who was our fourth runner today and had a great outing. Kelsey continued to run well again and showed that she can race with the top girls in the country."

The Huskies' total team score of 102 was rounded out by the 43rd-place finish of Taylor Perkins (Lakeville, Minn./Lakeville North) in a personal record-smashing time of 19:02.2 and the 52nd-place race of Maura Beattie (Woodstock, Ill./Woodstock) in a time of 19:17.0.

After topping a Midwest top 15-ranked team in Missouri last week at the Illini Challenge, the Huskies repeated the feat on Friday by finishing ahead of Iowa, who entered the race ranked No. 7 in the Midwest region by the USTFCCCA.

Also competing for the Huskies at the Illinois State Challenge were Carly Pederson (Bloomington, Ill./Normal Community), Kayla Fallis (Moberly, Mo./Moberly) and Michaela Heit (Rockford, Ill./Rockford Lutheran).

Looking to build on its strong start to the 2015 season, NIU cross country will return to action in two weeks at the prestigious Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 26 in Minneapolis, Minn.

"We'll have two hard weeks of practice to prepare for that race," Myers added. "Our goal there is compete against some MAC teams to see where we stack up. It'll also allow Kelsey to run against the nation's best and hopefully show that she can contend for an All-American place this season."

--NIU--