UC Irvine women's cross country earned a fourth-place finish at the 2026 Big West Championships on Saturday morning at the Ag/Ops Cross Country Course in Riverside, Calif. The Anteaters totaled 87 points to finish fourth in a 12-team field.
Kaia Schmidt and Emma Hadley led the Anteaters with top-10 finishes. Schmidt placed seventh with a time of 20:02.8, while Hadley followed in eighth place at 20:07.8. The two runners were separated by only five seconds.
Cynthia Herrera, Liana Lee, and Anna Soares also scored for UC Irvine. Herrera finished 22nd in 20:36.9, Lee placed 23rd in 20:37.5, and Soares rounded out the scoring in 27th with a time of 20:43.2. The team's top five runners combined for a time of 1:42:09, averaging 20:26 per runner.
The Anteaters maintained their fourth-place position throughout the race, holding the spot at both the 2K and 4K splits. The team finished with a 41-second spread between the first and fifth runners.
In the final standings, Utah Valley captured the team championship with 44 points. California Baptist finished second with 63 points, and Cal Poly took third with 77 points. UC Irvine finished ahead of fifth-place UC Santa Barbara, which had 163 points.
The full field of 12 teams included several other schools. The standings featured UC Santa Barbara in fifth, Cal State Fullerton in sixth with 183 points, UC San Diego in seventh with 194 points, and UC Riverside in eighth with 213 points. Sacramento State placed ninth with 239 points, CSUN followed in tenth with 286 points, Long Beach State was eleventh with 319 points, and CSU Bakersfield finished twelfth with 382 points.
The next event for the team is the NCAA West Regional, which is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13.
