Women’s Cross Country: Engel goes back-to-back winning Big Ten Individual Title, team finishes fifth

Connor Imes
Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:58:19 +0000
Cross Country, Instagram Page, News, Sports, Addie Engel, Akemi Von Scherr, Alex Dediu, Amelia Figler, Ana Karmol, Andrea Kuhn, Aniya Mosley, Annie Allen, Audrey DeSantis, Buckeyes, Carina Napoleon, Chloe Dawson, Colby Adams, Dillon Sweetman, Eric Brill, Erin Hudson, Evan Hughes, Fred Barends, Gia Napoleon, Giovanni Copploe, Ivan Slyepkan, Jack Agnew, John Cuozzo, Kaleb Martin, Keegan Freyhof, Keegan Souhan, Kevin Agnew, Liam Shaugnessey [and 23 more]

Senior runner Addie Engel competing for the Ohio State women’s cross country team at the Buckeyes at Mike Baumer Cross Country Classic Sep. 1. Engel won her second-straight Big Ten individual title on Friday.
Credit: Courtesy of The Ohio State Athletics

A sure way to improve on a Big Ten Championship victory is by winning another.

Senior Addie Engel won her second straight individual title, and Ohio State finished fifth overall as a team in the women’s 6K race at the Big Ten Championships Friday afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin, on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course.

“It was a good race for sure,” Engel said. “I think we got a lot better weather than we were expecting.”

The course was a bit sloppy, as it rained the two days before the race. Engel said the team mentally and physically prepared themselves for the trail ahead.

“We knew that parts of the course were going to be pretty dry and muddy and slippery, so we made sure we did what we could do to prepare ourselves,” Engel said. “Put the spikes in our shoes, the longer spikes, to kind of eliminate a little bit of that slipping, but honestly just preparing, mentally preparing ourselves for that.”

Michigan State won the team championship, led by third- and fourth-place finishes from senior Makenna Veen and fifth-year Katie Osika, who finished second behind Engel at the 2022 Big Ten Cross Country Championship.

Engel earned First Team All-Big Ten honors for her first-place finish, and senior Daniella Santos earned Second Team All-Big Ten honors for her eighth-place finish.

Head coach Sara Mason Vergote said she’s proud of her team and believes everyone competed to the best of their ability.

“When we walk away from the meet, I feel like everybody sold their soul and ran as hard as they could, I can’t be mad about it,” Vergote said.

For the first third of the race, Engel was first among the Buckeyes and third overall. The team sat sixth in the rankings after the first split, led by Engel and Santos, who finished the first third of the race in seventh place.

Just after the 4K mark, as the second third of the race concluded, Engel burst ahead of Osika, who fell all the way down to fourth, leaving Engel confidently at the front of the pack as the final third began.

Ohio State remained sixth as a team after the 4K split, with Engel now in first and Santos in ninth.

Wisconsin junior Leané Willemse rose to the second spot overall, trailing just behind Engel, but Engel continued to widen the gap as the final third went on.

Finishing with a time of 20:47.9, Engel went on to win for the second-straight time, finishing almost 10 seconds ahead of Willemse.

Santos finished second among the Buckeyes and eighth overall with a time of 21:25.2, her second-straight top-10 finish at the Big Ten Championships.

The third Buckeye to finish was senior Akemi Von Scherr, who passed the 2K split up in 14th place but ended in 33rd with a time of 22:08.1, just one place lower than her finish at the 2022 Big Ten Championship.

Closing out the top five for the Buckeyes was senior Andrea Kuhn — who finished 61st with a time of 22:44.1, a large drop off from her sixth-place, 20:18.7 finish at the 2022 Big Ten Championships — and fifth-year Gia Napoleon, who finished 64th with a time of 22:45.3, her career best.

The Buckeyes will now look ahead to the NCAA Great Lakes Regional in Madison on Nov. 10, with the women’s race set to start at 12:45 p.m.