Iowa Cross Country Updates

IOWA CITY — A knee injury took a bite out of Kevin Lewis's senior cross country season at Iowa. It also had an effect on how he approached Sunday's Big Ten cross country championships at Iowa's Ashton course.

'Our plan was to be deliberately conservative,' Iowa Coach Layne Anderson said.

But once Lewis got into the race he surged into the top group and finished sixth in 23 minutes 52.2 seconds to earn all-Big 10 honors. It was a huge jump after finishing 26th a year ago. It was also a personal-best time by 23 seconds.

'I'm super pumped,' Lewis said. 'I didn't really know where I was fitness-wise coming in, so I kind of held back and eased my way up. I'm very happy with that finish.'

'He showed some guts and some fighting spirit,' Anderson said. 'It was just a matter of how much (the lost) training time was going to take that edge away. Today was just want and desire as much as anything else.'

The meet was held in cool, windy conditions with the wind chill about 40 degrees. Wisconsin sophomore Malachy Schrobilgen repeated as individual champion in 23:35, breaking away from a big pack to nip teammate Michael VanVoorhis. The Badgers also won the team title by 30 points over Michigan. Iowa was eighth of 12 teams competing, up from 10th a year ago.

Once he caught the lead pack Lewis had to adjust his thinking while staying strong enough at the end to avoid being passed.

'You know (the pace) is going to pick up, but you have to stay back as much as possible knowing it's going to pick up and you'll have to shift gears a bit and go,' Lewis said. 'All the big names were there. It was just a matter of when someone would take it. I was trying to stay relaxed and stay with them.'

The Iowa women's team finished 11th out of the 14 competing teams. Top-ranked Michigan State won the team title by 29 points over eighth-ranked Wisconsin. Spartan Leah O'Connor won the individual title in 19:26.30.

Iowa's top two finishers were sophomores Katie Adams (50th in 21:21.43) and Samantha Zishka (60th in 21:29.58). Linn-Mar graduate Carolyn Newhouse was 66th. All five of Iowa's counting runners had personal-best times.

'I'm very pleased,' Adams said. 'I surprised myself. I didn't really know what pace to run at. I just kind of went with it. I felt good and I felt strong, and I just kind of ran with my teammates and that kind of pulled me through.

'We were ready for this race and ready to compete.'

'Our goal was to stay in a pack and work together and that would lead me to a good time,' Zishka said after cutting a minute off her previous best. 'The Big Ten is a very competitive conference. We took a step forward from last year, so that's what we have to kind of realize and take it from here.'