Personal bests for all runners fueled the Michigan women’s cross country team to a fourth-place finish at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational on Saturday.

“I’m really happy with what we did,” Michigan coach Mike McGuire said. “Across the board, all 12 of the girls. I think all 12 ran lifetime bests.”

No. 11 Syracuse finished ahead of the 19 other teams and 31 seconds ahead of the 22nd-ranked Wolverines to capture the meet title.

Senior Danielle Tauro led Michigan with a sixth-place individual finish and a 33-second personal best in the six-kilometer race.

“That was the strongest finish that I’ve had in a while,” Tauro said. “I was just trying to stay in the top ten and not let myself fall off. There were moments… when I was really tired and I was hurting pretty bad and every time… I was like, ‘Alright, I don’t care about it, the top ten is where I have to be, for my team and for me.’”

Tauro’s former high school classmate sophomore Jillian Smith crossed next for Michigan, finishing 18th, followed by sophomore Rebecca Addison, who finished 21st.

All of Michigan’s five scoring runners finished in the top 40, with a 31-second split between its first and fifth runner.

“I thought our first three of Tauro, Smith and Addison ran really, really well and we were solid with (sophomore Kaitlyn) Patterson and (redshirt junior Kaitlyn) Peale,” McGuire said.

The team finished one spot behind Big Ten rival No. 20 Michigan State at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course, the site of this year’s Big Ten Championships.

“We were right there again with Michigan State,” McGuire said. “I thought it was an improvement over what we did two weeks ago… and I thought Michigan State ran better than they ran the first time out.”

McGuire said he believes the team gained valuable experience in preparation for the Big Ten meet — a race the Wolverines will run at the same course on Oct. 31.

“I feel like the way we’re improving that we’re getting closer and closer to getting to No. 1 in the Big Ten,” Tauro said. “The consistency’s there, the motivation’s there and the performance has been paying off.”

McGuire was pleased with the team’s depth, praising the performance of the runners outside of the top five. All 12 runners who made the trip to Wisconsin showed significant improvement from the Spartan Invitational two weeks ago, according to McGuire.

He singled out junior Mary Grace Pellegrini’s performance as especially impressive.

“We don’t have a fifth runner, we have three fifth runners,” McGuire said. “So you have to get your sixth and seventh up closer to your scorers and we did that today. And it wasn’t because our scorers didn’t run well.”

Michigan is currently ranked second in the Big Ten behind Michigan State. The Wolverines will meet the Spartans next on Oct. 16 at the NCAA Pre-Nationals in Indiana.

“I really credit our team because we’re all racing together,” Addison said. “We just want to have a lot better year than last year so I think this (meet) is a really good indicator of where we are and how much better we are than last year.”