The UW-Whitewater men’s cross country team finished sixth and the women’s team finished seventh at the WIAC Conference meet in Menomonie on Saturday.

The Warhawks head to Illinois next week for the Division-III Midwest Regionals.

Last year, the men finished in fourth and the women took sixth at the same course, so the ’Hawks are familiar with it.

UW-Whitewater is on the cusp of being in the top 10 of each region. The men had 171 points and finished ahead of UW-River Falls, UW-Stout and UW-Superior. The women’s team finished ahead of UW-River Falls and UW-Superior with 148 points.

“We have five teams in our conference right now that are ranked in the top 35 in the country, so it’s pretty tough,” head coach Jeff Miller said.

This showed that the ’Hawks are not quite where they want to be in the conference and are only a place or two away from beating out their conference rivals.

Miller said that fast times and personal records are good, but that winning is most important.

“I’d rather run slow and beat people,” Miller said. “A personal record is good, but you want to beat teams you can beat.”

Miller was hoping to see everybody improve at conference and many runners did.

Twelve ’Hawks runners had personal records on Saturday, including fifth-year seniors Mathias Werve and Dan Machmueller, with times of 25:26 and 25:31 respectively.

Werve’s time was good enough for 11th overall and was a season best for the team. Machmueller finished 15th overall.

On the women’s side, Alyssa Duncan recorded a season best time of 22:40. Duncan’s time was good for eight place overall, while senior Madeline Roznos also ran well with a time of 22:58, giving her a 14 place finish.

Roznos said she has been pleased with Duncan’s performance this season.

“She has stepped up a lot this year and has been able to run with me, which is awesome,” Roznos said.

Roznos came into the meet with different expectations than maybe some of her teammates. Roznos wanted to finish off her WIAC conference running on a high note because this was her last meet.

Roznos was hoping to be on the first team all-conference because that is an accolade she has never achieved in her career at Whitewater.

“I want to be happy and get out there and know that I’ve given it my all,” Roznos said.

Practices are different for the teams heading into big events.

According to Roznos, runners make every effort to get as much sleep as possible so they are well prepared for the race. Roznos also said that practices during the week are a bit easier and are geared more toward the start of a race so the runners make sure they get out hard.

The ’Hawks are hoping to qualify as a team for Nationals for the first time since 2003.