Results

DeKALB, Ill. (Sept. 12, 2009) - Senior Abbie Zaspel won the Huskie Invitational to lead the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's cross country team to a third-place finish at the nine-team meet Saturday afternoon.

Milwaukee finished with 89 points for third place, behind Northwestern in first with 35 and Western Illinois second with 79. Host Northern Illinois took fourth with 112 points, ahead of Horizon League foe Green Bay (129 points). St. Mary's College was sixth (134), while Judson (147, Iowa Western Community College (197) and Chicago State (293) rounded out the field.

"Winning is good," UWM head coach Pete Corfeld said. "To have Abbie win and Elise (Sigg) take fifth was a good sign. It was our first 5k of the season, so we want to keep things in prospective. We're trying to identify some things and we will continue to get better. We just need to get more people running with our top two."

Zaspel led the entire race and completed the course in 18:55 to finish just over seven seconds ahead of second place. Freshman Elise Sigg continued the promising start to her collegiate career by taking fifth in 19:23.34.

Junior Tanaiya Fiser took 17th place with a time of 20:35.33 and sophomore Kristi Schuette was 27th in 21:03.12. Freshman Megan Gang was the final Panther scorer, taking 54th at 22:00.92.

The team's top seven was completed by sophomores Shannon Brown in 58th and Beonca Mitchell in 68th. Brown finished in 22:08.29 and Mitchell crossed the line in 22:38.86.

The Panthers return to action next Saturday (Sept. 19) at the Parkside Invitational in Kenosha, Wis.