When improvement ends in disappointment, a greater horizon may lie ahead.
UCLA cross country competed in the Big Ten Championship Friday at Forest Akers East Golf Course in East Lansing, Michigan. The men’s team finished ninth out of 15 teams, and the women’s team finished 12th among a pool of 18.
The men’s team placed three spots higher than its 2024 placement, whereas the women’s team ranked the same as the previous year.
“If you would have asked me at the beginning of August, before preseason, if I would have taken ninth place at Big Tens this year, I would have said 100%,” assistant coach Andrew Ferris said. “But as the season went along, our expectations certainly changed. I think we’re all a little disappointed to be ninth. I think they (the men’s team) felt like they’ve left a little bit … out there.”
Redshirt freshmen Andreas Dybdahl and Everett Capelle, who each achieved top-30 finishes en route to tournament All-Freshmen selections, led the men’s team.
For many on the team, like Dybdahl and Capelle, it was their first taste of postseason competition.
“There was so much more excitement surrounding it and so many more fans there,” Capelle said. “One of my teammates, Kai Mitchell-Reiss, he’s really great at pep talks. He’d always have something really great to say any day that we were thinking and talking about Big Tens. So it definitely felt different.”
Friday marked a return to the terrain for Capelle. He dealt with posterior tibial tendonitis and iliotibial band syndrome earlier in the season, causing him to miss UCLA’s last meet. He said he trained consistently, albeit at lower intensity, to stay prepared for his return.
Ferris said the upperclassmen had disappointing Big Ten performances, despite the stellar underclassmen outings from Dybdahl and Capelle.
“The older guys maybe felt like the pressure got to them a little bit,” Ferris said. “They’re still learning. But I think they underperformed relative to their fitness levels. I’m hoping they can learn from that and grow and be strong performers at regionals in two weeks.”
Two of the top three UCLA performers at the Bill Dellinger Invitational on Oct. 10 – redshirt sophomore Mitchell-Reiss and junior Tristan Amell – clocked results more than thirty seconds slower Friday compared to their respective times in early October. Mitchell-Reiss ran a 24:28.7 and Amell ran a 24:58.1.
Capelle and Ferris both added that the team struggled to adhere to its game plan. UCLA planned on sticking together as one pack during the race, but on Friday, other teams separated the Bruin pack and disrupted Ferris’ strategy.
Friday’s meet was also ripe with adversity for the women’s team.
Freshman Annie Ivarsson suffered an ankle injury within the first 600 meters of the 6k race, junior Ailish Hawkins dealt with asthma issues and senior Annika Salz battled the stomach flu.
“Despite a lot of things going wrong for us, to come away 12th and have a lower points total than last year, I think that’s a success,” Ferris said. “We know we’re better than that. So despite everything going wrong, to still be where we were shows some real progress.”
Ferris added that adversity took a mental toll on the runners and diverted their focus away from the race at times.
Sophomore Olivia Foody led the team with a 21:04.7 time, en route to a top-50 overall finish. Freshmen Evie Marheineke and Gabriella Peters also boasted strong performances, each with top-70 finishes.
“Olivia Foody improved on her performance from last year despite some personal problems this year,” Ferris said. “Evie and Gabby were pretty damn good as freshmen. At the beginning of the year, I was planning on redshirting all three of those freshmen (Marheineke, Peters and Ivarsson) to give them time to train and develop. For them to step into that role straight away and unexpectedly, I think they did a great job.”
UCLA had a trying meet and faced the disappointment of underperforming relative to self-expectation.
Met with these challenges, Ferris encouraged the team to focus on the process, not the outcome.
“Trust yourself; trust your teammates,” Ferris said. “All we want to do when we hit the start line is get everything we can out of ourselves on that given day. And whatever that is, we need to be satisfied by that.”
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