DEKALB, Ill.- The Western Illinois cross country teams both took second at the second annual Huskie Open hosted by Northern Illinois University on Saturday afternoon.

In a field of nine teams, the Fighting Leatherneck women's cross country team posted 79 points to take second place finish behind Northwestern (35 points). Senior Carianna Cottone paced the team with a second-place finished in a time of 19:02.

“Carianna (Cottone) ran an amazing race,” said Western Illinois head cross country coach Matt Morris. “She is light-years better than she was last year. Josi (Parker) ran well too, and Alycia (Thurston) and Amanda (Darnell), two of our freshman, were really competitive too.”

Western had two other runners place in the top 20 as Josi Parker took 11th place in a time of 19:49 and Alycia Thurston crossed the finish line in a time of 20:41 to finish 20th. Rounding out the rest of the scoring for the Leathernecks were Amanda Darnell (25th, 2:56) and Julie Dietsch (31st, 21:13).

“Julie Dietsch ran great too,” said Morris. “She ran so well and that helped us get second place. She was more competitive than she has been in the past and it has really helped our team.”

The men's team placed a total of six runners in the top 15 for a second-place finish (46 points) behind Wisconsin-Milwaukee (31 points).

Senior Eric Anerino led the team with a sixth-place finish with a time of 27:01. Tyler Buckles and Jeremy Whitaker rounded out the top 10 as the finished eighth (27:09) and ninth (27:13), respectively.

“Across the board, our guys did well,” said Morris. “Eric (Anerino) did really well. Jared Schmidt really stepped up and was our No. 4 guy even though he hasn't run a ton of cross country and is normally an 800 (meter run) guy in track and he ran a great race for us.”

Jared Schmidt took 11th with a time of 27:23 followed by teammates Mike McGraw (12th, 27:38) and Luke Miller (13th, 27:40).

“I thought in general, our kids really competed well,” said Morris. “It would have been better for us if the course was more flat like ours, but it was a good experience for us and I thought the team did a great job of handling it and hanging in their anyway. Overall, I was impressed with both teams and they did a great job.”