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43 I n a competition meant to get the team's feet wet for the 2016 regular season, the Univer- sity of Iowa cross country team accomplished much more than assessing its fitness level at the Hawkeye Invitational on Sept. 2 In a crowded eight-team field, junior Mi- chael Melchert set a school record in the men's 6,000-meters, besting the previous school record set by Eric McTaggart in 2005 by six seconds. He posted a time of 18:12.8. Senior Tess Wilberding won the women's 3,000-meters for her first career win. Her official time of 10:20.4 set a personal best and ranks fih in school history. "Being new I wanted to have an opportunity to assess the team sooner rather than later because once the season starts, there is not a lot of time," UI head coach Randy Hasenbank said. "We wanted to go out there, put on a good show, and practice win- ning. If they have an opportunity to put the uni- form on, go out there and try to win." e team gave Hasenbank a lot to look at, record- ing seven personal bests and breaking a school record. "It's good to get that rust-buster out of the way," Melchert said. "Getting the school record was not what I was looking for. I was just trying to get a hard effort in, go off of feel, and not pay attention to time or splits." e Hawkeye men's team placed second with 60 points. Senior Ben Anderson set a personal best, placing 10th overall (18:31.1), and Ian Eklin, who finished third in this race last year, recorded a 13th-place finish (18:37.8). Wilberding led the women to a dominating finish. Iowa tallied 47 points — 32 points ahead of second place Creighton. "It was a good season opener," Wilberding said. "I wasn't going in expecting to win. I wanted to go out and see where I was physically and when I got to the 2K, I thought it was a good time to speed up. I felt good about where I was." e women had three runners cross the finish in the top 10. Junior Madison Waymire placed third (10.20.9) to tie for sixth in Iowa history and sophomore Lauren Opatrny made her 3,000-meter debut, finishing ninth. Heading into the team's next race, Hasenbank says the team isn't where it wants to be yet and it can't get too confident. e goal is to continue improv- ing as the season wears on. "We can't get an overinflated sense of self," Hasen- bank said. "It's our first race and it's shorter than our championship meets on both sides. ey need to go back to work and kind of pretend this race did not happen and keep working." e Hawkeyes return to action Sept. 9 at Illinois State SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER SCHEDULE Sept. 9 at Illinois State (Normal, Ill.) Sept. 24 at Roy Griak Invitational (Minneapolis) Oct. 1 Regional Preview (Iowa City) Oct. 15 at Pre-Nationals (Terre Haute, Ind.) Oct. 30 at Big Ten Championships (Minneapolis)