The Gophers women’s cross country team earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships with its second-place team finish at the NCAA Midwest Regional on Friday.
Junior Ali Weimer finished as the 6K’s runner-up at 19:48.85, six seconds behind Oklahoma’s Leah Jeruto. Graduate Emma Atkinson finished 11th, while freshman Isabelle Schmitz and sophomore Izzy Roemer finished 15th and 16th, respectively.
Weimer said she started to feel discomfort around the final kilometer of the race so she eased her pace, allowing Jeruto to pull ahead and win. While she wanted to win, Weimer said she saved her energy for the national meet instead of risking a longer recovery.
Gophers head coach Sarah Hopkins said the team is taking practice lighter to retain energy before nationals. She added nervousness will come into play while on the way to nationals but the team can reframe it to their advantage.
“The nerves are good and that’s how it helps you run fast,” Hopkins said. “You get endorphins from that and you get adrenaline from that, and that’s what we want. But, we just don’t want it to go so far over the edge that you’re panicked and in a bad mental place.”
Weimer said casual activities, like getting her nails done or hanging out at a coffee shop, help her and her teammates mentally prepare.
The Gophers finished in second and secured their spot in the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2021. Weimer, Atkinson, Schmitz and Roemer earned All-Region honors for their performances.
Hopkins said this year’s women’s roster is similar to last year’s, but the key difference is their confidence. She said the development that comes with another year of experience for runners like Roemer, and changes in training, separate this year’s ceiling.
After the Big Ten Championships, Hopkins texted the women’s team and thanked them for trusting her after a year where the team failed to qualify for nationals. Earlier this season, multiple women’s runners expressed dissatisfaction with last year’s performance.
“It would have been easy after last season to question everything and doubt what we were doing,” Hopkins said.
Weimer said her heartbreak and discontent with the last two years are motivating her to break the idea that Minnesota is not competitive as the women’s team did not appear in the cross-country national rankings until the third week of the season. The Gophers are now ranked 23rd for the second straight week.
“Let’s prove that we are capable of doing big things,” Weimer said. “I think going into this week, there’s nothing to lose.”
While the women’s team extended their season, the men’s team finished 10th out of 29 teams and did not receive a bid to the NCAA championships.
Freshman Aidan Jones was the Gophers’ top runner in the 10K finishing in 29th place and setting a personal record of 30:12.44. Graduate Lucas Florsheim finished in 47th and set a personal record with a time of 30:37.05.
At the Big Ten Championships, Florsheim tied the all-time Minnesota 8K record while Jones’ performance put him at eighth in program history. Florsheim praised Jones for competing with older college runners as a freshman.
“He’s staring down three more years in the NCAA,” Florsheim said before regionals. “He’s coming for all those records if you ask me.”
Florsheim said the consistency of the women’s team this season was inspirational and motivating for the men’s team. He added the women’s team has a solid balance of young and veteran talent to succeed in the future.
“It’s been an absolute privilege to travel with them and train with them,” Florsheim said. “They’ve been absolutely killing it this year.”
The Gophers women’s team will begin competition at the NCAA Championships on Nov. 23 at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison, Wisconsin.
