CHICAGO -- Loyola Chicago cross country gears up for the Atlantic 10 Cross Country Championships in Mechanicsville, Va. on Saturday, Oct. 31. The women race the 6K at 9 a.m. and the men to follow at 9:50 a.m. (both times listed in CT). Both races will be streamed on ESPN+ with live results available. 

The Loyola men enter the championship meet ranked eighth in the USTFCCCA DI Midwest Regional Rankings while the women are 15th. The Rambler women will look to capture their fifth straight A10 title and eighth consecutive conference crown, following three Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) championships from 2019 to 2021. The men's team seeks its second straight and fourth A10 title in the last five years.

At last year's championships, Loyola swept the conference for the third time in four years. The men captured their third A-10 title in four years, winning in commanding fashion with just 28 points. Five Ramblers placed inside the top 10, including seniors Jake Phillips (4th, 24:01.6) and Nate Boutin (6th, 24:04.0, PR). Loyola women repeated as the conference champions, finishing with 51 points. Senior Barbara Neiva placed fifth (21:16.5) and current assistant coach Bethany Graham came in seventh (21:21.0), earning themselves All-Conference accolades. 

This season the Rambler men finished first at the Lewis Early Bird (Sept. 4), 10th at the 47th Annual Sean Earl Loyola Lakefront Invitational (Sept. 25) and 16th at Indiana State's Under Armour Pre-National Invitational (Oct. 16), while the women placed first, 17th and 38th, respectively. Phillips finished first for the men in every race he ran, highlighted by an 18th place finish at Loyola's home meet with a personal course best of 23:12.8 in the 8K, earning him his first-ever A10 Performer of the Week award. On the women's side, graduate student Allison Dougherty led the pack in all of her appearances. She was named A10 Performer of the Week alongside Phillips after running a 20:25.77 6K at the Ramblers' home course.