With a few races under their belts, the Bruins will return to Wisconsin to usher in the postseason.

UCLA cross country will compete in the Big Ten Championships on Friday morning at Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Verona, Wisconsin. The squad ran at the same course earlier this month as part of the Nuttycombe Invite, with the men’s team finishing in 22nd place and the women’s group coming in 27th.

Nine freshmen made their way to Westwood ahead of the 2026 season, and several of the new faces heard their names called at the Saint Mary’s Invitational on Sept. 18.

Thirteen squads competed in the 8K on the men’s side of the invite, and the Bruin men placed seventh with 140 points – over 100 more than first place Chico State. Sophomore Yosef Berhan paced the team individually with a final time of 23:44.9, followed by freshman Drake Hoferer’s 23:47.9.

“Saint Mary’s was an opportunity for people to gain experience in college, so we raced a lot of our freshmen,” said assistant coach Andrew Ferris. “It was definitely a big learning opportunity for a lot of those athletes.”

On the women’s side, the Bruins also accumulated 140 points but placed slightly higher at fifth. The freshmen stepped up for the blue and gold, with the top two individual finishers being rookie Bruins.

Gretchen Yakaitis was the top women’s finisher for UCLA with a time of 20:38.5, and Ayanna Hickey followed with a 21:10.9. Both California locals, Yakaitis won the Division 3 race at the 2025 CIF State Cross Country Championships, and Hickey qualified for the CIF State Championships all four years of high school.

After welcoming the group of newcomers, the Bruins headed to Wisconsin for the Nuttycombe Invite on Oct. 9 – their biggest race of the season so far. Thirty-five squads competed on the men’s side and 33 on the women’s side.

UCLA sent out some familiar faces at Nuttycombe, including fifth-year Henry Coughlan and junior Andreas Dybdahl for the men – who finished first and second among the Bruins, respectively. Coughlan finished with an 8K time of 24:39.5 at the Big Ten Championships last season, while Dybdahl paced the Bruins with a 22nd overall finish after running a 23:58.7.

Junior Jack Falkowski finished 190th overall individually at Nuttycombe this season with a time of 24:34.6 but understood the importance of running in a high-competition invite.

“That race in particular was probably one of the deepest and fastest races in NCAA history, other than maybe a nationals meet,” Falkowski said. “I could have probably run a lot better, and a couple other guys thought the same thing about their performances, so we came out of Nuttycombe with a positive mindset that we can compete way better.”

Pacing the women was sophomore Evie Marheineke with a 20:53.1. Fellow sophomore Annie Ivarsson came in second for the blue and gold and 107th overall after posting a time of 20:54.8.

With several meets under their belt in 2026, the Bruins will now welcome the postseason at the Big Ten Championships.

All 18 programs in the conference will be competing Friday morning, with every school sending out a women’s team and all but three sending out a men’s team.

“For us as a team, we’re trying to be better than we were last year,” Ferris said. “We certainly view ourselves as being more competitive within the conference this year compared to previous years, so we’re just trying to compete and get a little bit better.”

The women’s 6K race will kick off the day at 8:35 a.m, followed by the men’s 8K at 9:35 a.m.

The Bruins are making strides to be as competitive as possible in a high-level conference, and the league bout may be the best chance for them to prove themselves.

“Big Tens will be a good test for us,” Falkowski said. “We’ll be able to run against some key teams that ran really well at Nuttycombe and are also looking for national competition. We’re definitely looking forward to a good battle.”