PEORIA, Ill. – UIC's Carlos Cabrera broke his own school record in the men's 8K Friday afternoon as the Flames competed in the annual Pink Classic, hosted by Bradley.
 
Cabrera's time of 24:15.5 was 1.1 seconds faster than his previous school record of 24:16.6, which he set at the 2019 Horizon League Cross Country Championships. The fifth year student-athlete finished in ninth place Friday afternoon as the men's squad placed 15^th overall in a field of 31 teams.
 
"I thought today was a positive step forward," said head coach Ashley Lucas. "It's always a positive to have the team come back with multiple PRs. The women start it off with solid performances, especially from our top three. We still need to add some pieces back to our team with a few we kept out who are a little banged up. Then the men followed it up with Carlos breaking his own school record."
 
Teresa Mejia paced UIC's women's squad, finishing the 6K course in 22:13.9 to place 63^rd overall. As a team, the women finished in 28^th out of 37 squads.
 
Dathan Maton and Cailyn Persinger had strong races for the men and women, respectively, as Maton finished in 58^th place (25:07.8) while Persinger claimed 89^th place (22:26.7).
 
The trio of Drey Maton, Mark Lemke and Tre Rivers rounded out the scoring for the men's squad. Maton finished in 25:27.6 (103^rd), Lemke finished five seconds later in 25:32.2 (116^th) and Rivers posted a time of 25:48.1 (150^th).
 
Jenna Boyle was UIC's third finisher in the women's competition, posting a time of 23:02.0 to finish in 151^st position. Daniela Martinez (201^st – 23:44.3 and Kate Wojcikiewicz (208^th – 23:51.3) rounded out the scoring for the Flames Friday.
 
"Now we continue to set our sights on the Horizon League Championships and look forward to mixing it up on the course."
 
UIC returns to action in two weeks, competing at the 2021 Horizon League Championships on Saturday, October 30. The Flames have run the championship course once this season when the team competed at the Jaguar Classic, hosted by IUPUI.