The NMU Women’s cross country team has its first win after a dominant performance at Lake Superior State University last Saturday. The victory over the host school and Michigan Tech saw five Wildcats place in the top 10 finishers.
The team was very impressed with the way they performed.
“We really improved from the last time that we ran, especially against Michigan Tech,” said senior Megan Hendershot. “We were behind probably the first half of the meet and then we all pulled together and we ran probably the best meet I’ve seen us run in a long time.”
Hendershot finished the 5000-meter race in ninth place with a time of 19:55. Senior Bibiane Mahy finished as NMU’s top runner, placing third overall with a time of 19:38 on the 5000-meter course. Senior Jenny Wiedmeyer was also a top finisher for the ‘Cats, coming in right behind Mahy with a time of 19:45, good for fourth overall.
One surprise in the top finishers was Wildcat Olivia Juntila.
“She’s a freshman and she ended up being our third runner,” said head coach Jenny Ryan. “It was really a great result because she came in with not a lot of experience [because] she walked on the team, so that was a great result there.”
Juntila finished sixth overall with a time of 19:48. Other top finishers for the ‘Cats included sophomore Nora Kiilunen who finished eighth overall with a time of 19:49.
While the ‘Cats were very competitive as a squad, there was also some friendly competition between individual runners.
“It was really great; there were six people within five seconds [of each other],” said Ryan. Hendershot also noted the teams parity.
“That is really exciting . to see that at our second meet just tells you that we are going to improve even more,” she said. Hendershot also believes that the number of girls running within seconds of each other will increase.
Next weekend the women travel six hours to the Midwest Collegiate Championships in Kenosha, Wisc. Participating schools will include past national championship participant University of Wisconsin-Parkside and a few other schools from our conference as well.
“That will be the course run at the Regional Championships, so it will give us a good chance to both see the course and also get some experience running on [it],” said Ryan. She said the desire to preview the regional course is common, and several other GLIAC teams will be participating in order to get the same opportunity.
While the team has been to a couple meets already, this will be the first meet with more than three or four teams competing.
“It will be a bigger meet, usually anywhere between 15-20 teams [are] there, so that will definitely give us a good idea of where we stand against some tougher teams,” said Ryan.
Her goal for the team is to finish in the top three. “I think that would show that we are a team that’s running pretty strong and have a good chance of doing well at both conference and regionals and hopefully competing at nationals.”
In order to obtain her goal, Ryan plans on allowing the team to take this week of training easier than the past few.
“We’ve trained pretty hard for four weeks straight, and now this week we are going to take it a little bit easier,” she said. “[We will] do a little bit of a taper, and sort of give them a chance to run pretty fast, both this weekend and at the big race the weekend after.”
The weekend after their meet in Kenosha, the ‘Cats will travel to St. Paul, Minn. for the Roy Griak Invitational, one of the largest collegiate cross country meets in the country.
Following that, they will host the U.P. Championships, the lone home meet of the season.
