UC Irvine’s Women’s Cross Country team finished strong at the Big West Cross Country Championships in Hawaii on October 31st, placing second overall.
The Anteaters finished the season with a victory at the Vanguard Invitational, a third place finish at the UC Riverside Invitational, a sixth place victory at the Bill Dellinger Invitational and a 15th place finish at the Highlander Invitational. Around two weeks following the Highlander Invitational, the Anteaters took part in the Big West Championship race to conclude the conference portion of their season.
The top 10 finishers in the individual race attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Irvine, UC San Diego and UC Davis.
The Cal Poly Mustangs took first overall in the Women’s Big West Cross Country Championships on Oct. 31, and had an individual finish second overall. The Mustangs finished the race with a total time of 1:46:39, as UC Irvine narrowly nipped Cal Poly’s heels with a time of 1:49:07. Cal Poly’s redshirt sophomore Nikki Bridges recorded an average mile time of 5:35 in the 6k, taking the silver.
Not only did San Luis Obispo have an individual take second overall, but they also had individuals finish third, fifth, and 10th in the race. Bridges, Kelli Gaffney, Renae Searls and Melisse Djomby Enyawe finished in the top ten, qualifying them for the all-conference team. This marked the fourth consecutive win for Cal Poly for both the Men’s and Women’s Big West Cross Country championship.
UC Irvine closely followed Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, taking second place this weekend having only a 2.28-second difference in total time team results. For individuals, junior Kaia Schmidt took fourth place with an individual time of 21:13.2. She was the only individual placer within the top 10 for UCI.
UC San Diego placed third overall for team results, with an overall time of 1:48:59. Their time was shorter than UC Irvine’s, though their total score ranked them third with 82 points. This is because UC San Diego’s individual placers ranked in the latter end for individual results. Individual results placed San Diego’s redshirt senior Sylvana Northrop in first place for individual results at a time of 20:42.1.
UC Davis placed fourth overall in team results with a point total average of 119 and a time of 1:50:54. A notable individual placer from Davis was sophomore Fiona McGrath, who squeezed in ninth overall. This is the only individual scorer in the top 10 for UC Davis, similar to UCI and UC San Diego.
One more notable individual placer for the top 10 individuals included UC Santa Barbara’s freshman Addie Oversmith, who finished sixth individually in the 6k race. Oversmith and Zachary Parker, a senior at UC Santa Barbara, took third for the Gauchos. They were the only two individual placers in the top ten for both the Men and Women’s Championship from Santa Barbara.
Team results for the Women’s Big West Championships in order from first place to last followed as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC Davis, California State University (CSU) Fullerton, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, CSU Long Beach, University of Hawai’i, CSU Northridge and CSU Bakersfield.
Sofia Huber is a Sports Intern for the fall 2025 quarter. She can be reached at slhuber@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor and Joshua Gonzales