UW-Whitewater’s women’s cross country finished third in the 2023 WIAC Women’s Cross Country Championship in Prescott, Wisconsin, on Saturday, Oct. 28 with a total time of 1:56:08.70 and 115 points overall.

“The women were great. They finished third in a tiebreaker with Stout (who finished fourth),” head coach Jeff Miller said. “That’s our second highest finish ever in school history… it was a pretty significant day for us to get ourselves back in that top three.” 

With their third place finish, the Warhawks look to continue their success heading into the NCAA Division III North Regionals coming up Saturday, Nov. 11 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

“This was a good stepping stone to give us some confidence. We’ve gone through the bulk of our hard training, we’re just trying to maintain where we’re at and do a couple things here to keep ourselves fresh,” Miller said. “It’s been a very fun year—we’ve got some new people that came in and helped us become a better team… we haven’t had this much depth in a while where we have a lot of people that can contribute… They’ve been working hard together and supporting each other.”

Sophomore Katie Erb led the way for Warhawks, finishing 16th of 87 qualified runners and a time of 22.54.7 in the women’s 6k.

“As a team, we did really well. A lot of people had their personal record today and overall ran really well as a team,” Erb said. “Even though some of us have had injuries throughout this season, we’ve faced adversity and we’re overcoming it. I think that’s what went really well this season.”

The third place finish for the women in the conference championship is their second highest finish under Miller, finishing in second place in 1990. With less than two weeks away until regionals, the Warhawks will look to finish their year out strong.