CHICAGO -- Racing less than 10 miles from campus on Saturday, fourteen UIC Flames posted personal-best times at the 41^st Loyola Lakefront Invitational at Montrose Beach. The women's team, with nine record times in the 5K, placed 14^th in a packed field of 33 teams. The men's team added five PRs in the 8K, finishing 18^th in a 26-team field.

"Overall we are happy with the results today," said UIC head cross country coach Ashley Lucas. "We had multiple PRs across the board on the men's and women's side which really goes to show that we are heading in the right direction. It was pretty much darn near perfect race conditions. We still need to tweak a few things before the conference championship and get everyone healthy to get all the pieces to fit together.

"It was such a fun day to race race in our own backyard and have so much family and fan support," added Lucas. "We cannot thank everyone who came out today enough for being with us every step of the way."

On a picturesque day for racing, the Flames began the meet with the women's 5K race. After leading UIC in each of the team's first two events, senior Allison Hansen paced the squad once again. She broke 18 minutes for the first time and ran the 5K in a PR of 17:57, which was second among all Horizon League competitors and 37^th overall. Among Horizon League runners, only Milwaukee's Mikayla Fox (17:56) was in front of Hansen.

Following Hansen was sophomore Ai Kaisho. The sophomore followed suit with a monster PR of her own, coming home in 18:18, about 43 seconds faster than her last top time. She took 65^th place Saturday. Sahian Lopez continued her strong season with a run of 18:47. Newcomer Sylvia Waz was the squad's top freshman at Montrose Beach in a shade over 19 minutes (19:03).

"I thought that on the women's side, Allison [Hansen] finally breaking 18 was huge and Ai [Kaisho] wasn't too far behind," said Lucas. "For the women's team to head back home with nine PRs is something great we can really build on."

Once the women cleared the course, the men took to their team boxes for an 8K trip through Lincoln Park. For the first time in his relatively young career, sophomore Carlos Cabrera was the top runner for UIC. The Naperville, Ill., native clocked a PR of 25:25 and finished first among Flames and third among Horizon League runners. Crossing the finish line right behind Cabrera was UIC's Walmer Saavedra (25:26). Saavedra shaved about 12 seconds off his prior best on Saturday.

Finishing third among UIC's entrants was another second-year standout, Martin Skucas. Skucas finished inside the top 100, 92^nd overall, in a time of 25:48, well over a minute better than his best run last season, which came at the Joe Piane Invitational at Notre Dame.

"Today was the best race we've seen from Carlos [Cabrera] and Martin [Skucas] put together," said Lucas. Several guys stepped up with PRs and we were very pleased with the effort."

UIC collected 14 PRs despite several Flames dealing with nagging sicknesses.

"This week we were unfortunately hit with a major cold bug," said Lucas. "The fact that so many ran PRs while sick is super encouraging."

Complete results are available in the PDFs linked in the blue box above.