Championship Central
COLUMBUS, Ohio – This week, the Ohio State women’s and men’s cross country teams will travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the 2022 Big Ten Championships hosted by Michigan. Admission is free to Friday’s meet.
The No. 22-ranked women will run a 6K, set to start at 10:45 a.m., followed by the men’s 8K at 11:45 a.m.
The races will be streamed through Big Ten Plus and live results will be available HERE.
Buckeyes at Big Tens
- Five current members of the women’s squad have raced in two Big Ten meets: Addie Engel, Andrea Kuhn, Danielle Santos, Akemi Von Scherr and Annie Allen. Emma Bucher (2021) and Allie Guagenti (2020) also have conference meet experience. Engel, Kuhn, Santos and Von Scherr were among the Buckeye counters last season.
- Engel placed fourth at the meet last season to earn All-Big Ten honors and Guagenti was the fifth-place finisher the season before to garner an all-conference spot.
- The Buckeye women were eighth at the 2021 Big Ten Championships and the men were 10th, with the meet held at Penn State.
- The women have finished fourth twice, most recently in 2014, and have finished fifth three times in the last six races, most recently in the 2020 meet (held in January 2021).
- Zubin Jha, Ivan Slyepkan and John Cuozzo raced in the last two Big Ten Championships for the men. Zach Shultz, Alex Dediu, Gavin Copploe, Kevin Agnew and Kaleb Martin all ran in the 2021 meet.
- Ohio State’s men’s team has one Big Ten championship, in 1923, and finished runner-up eight times, most recently in 2009.
- The Buckeyes raced on the Big Ten meet course earlier this season at the Big Ten Preview Sept. 9. Engel captured the women’s title, with the women placing second, while the men were fifth.
In the Rankings
- In the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) national rankings released last week, the Ohio State women moved up to a season-best No. 22.
- Other ranked Big Ten women’s teams include No. 17 Wisconsin, No. 23 Michigan State, No. 26 Michigan and No. 29 Northwestern, with Illinois and Indiana receiving votes.
- In the Great Lakes Region rankings last week, the women moved up to No. 2, behind Notre Dame, with Toledo No. 3, Wisconsin No. 4 and Michigan State No. 5.
- 9 Wisconsin and No. 29 Michigan are the nationally ranked Big Ten men’s teams.
- In the Great Lakes Region, the Buckeye men are No. 14. Wisconsin is No. 2 in the region, with Michigan No. 3, Michigan State No. 5, Indiana No. 7 and Purdue No. 10.
This and That
- The Buckeyes last raced Oct. 15 at the Texas A&M Arturo Barrios Invitational. The women, with five Top 14 finishers, won the team championship, with the men placing second with their Top 5 among the first 38 finishers.
- Addie Engel is a three-time Big Ten Athlete of the Week and earned USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week accolades this season. She has placed in the Top 5 in eight of her last 11 races, and in the Top 16 in all but NCAAs in the stretch (where she was 66th at her first NCAA meet), including at Big Tens and regionals last year.
- The trio of Engel, Daniella Santos and Andrea Kuhn were the Buckeyes’ Top 3 finishers, in that order, in the four regular season races they ran this season. All three finished in the Top 10 in the four races.
- Nathaniel Tamminga has been the Buckeyes’ top finisher the last three races and among the Top 3 in the four races he has run this season. Gavin Copploe, Sean Carney, Zubin Jha and Ivan Slyepkan have all been among the Buckeyes’ Top 3 finishers twice.
NCAA Competition Awaits
- Terre Haute, Ind., will be the site of the 2022 NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championships Nov. 11.
- The NCAA Championships will be held in Stillwater, Okla., Nov. 19.
