By Adam Hensley
Hawkeye cross-country will kick off its championship season on Oct. 30 at the Big Ten Championships in Minneapolis.
In a conference that has seven nationally ranked teams (on both the men’s and women’s sides), Iowa won’t back down from the challenge.
“I think you could argue, if you look at the results historically, [the Big Ten] is one the top three conferences in the country over the past 25 years,” head coach Randy Hasenbank said. “The Big Ten has an amazing history.”
In 2015, Michigan won the men’s division, scoring 63 points. Penn State stopped Michigan State’s two-year streak on the women’s side, winning the conference championship for the first time since 2009.
The Hawkeye men placed 10th last year with a raw team. The team did not race any seniors in the 2015 championships, but 2016 is a different story.
Oct. 30 will mark senior Ben Anderson’s fourth and final time competing in the Big Ten meet in a Hawkeye uniform.
Finishing as Iowa’s top runner in all but one of the meets he’s competed in this season, Anderson said he’s excited, mainly because he believes he’s in the best shape of his life.
“I want to be consistent,” he said. “I definitely want to get through the 5K pretty conservative, then probably the last 3K kind of run it how I did Griak and close [out], pick[ing] off a lot of people. I’d like to be in a top-30 position at the 5K and then go from there.”
Anderson and the rest of the men’s team will be without two of their top three runners. Junior Michael Melchert and sophomore Daniel Soto will start the championship season on the sidelines, out with injuries.
Hasenbank said that while the injuries are a considerable blow to the team, he embraces the prospect of watching some of the underclassmen step up once given the chance.
“It comes down to opportunities for someone else,” he said. “I’m looking forward to taking some of the young guys. They get their first shot, maybe much earlier than they’d normally get in the Big Ten Championship.”
On the other hand, the women’s team comes into the conference championship with good health.
The next step for the Hawkeyes, Hasenbank said, is to make a leap forward mentally, believing that they can hang with the likes of No. 6 Michigan, No. 9 Penn State, and No. 27 Michigan State.
Junior Madison Waymire, who buys into Hasenbank’s mindset, said she is ready for the Hawkeyes to make some noise.
“We have a good shot to be a lot better than we were last year,” she said. “I’m most confident in my kick. We worked on a lot of speed training this season, and I really think it’s going to help.”
Including Waymire, senior Tess Wilberding and sophomores Lauren Opatrny and Andrea Shine strengthen the women’s top four, giving the Hawkeyes the potential to be a sleeper team against bruising competition.
At the 2015 Big Ten Championships, Iowa’s women mirrored the men’s, placing 10th among 14 teams.
The team failed to place a runner in the top 30 (Waymire came in at 32nd.)
Looking at this meet’s history, Wisconsin has dominated in the men’s competition in years past. From 1985-2012, the Badgers have won all but two Big Ten titles. Since 2012, no team has been able to put back-to-back conference titles together. Michigan, ranked No. 14 in the country, will get its shot to do so.
The women’s side does not feature a streak like the Wisconsin men; however, Michigan State has won four Big Ten titles in the past six seasons.