Women’s cross-country look to top runner-up finish last season
The 2011 Central Michigan women’s cross-country team made successful strides last year.
Finishing second in the Mid-American Conference championship, the Chippewas only lost to the University of Toledo.
This season, there are 17 runners on the roster, with just four seniors, similar to last year. The only difference this season is there will be less freshmen and more sophomores, and thus, more experience.
Director of track and field and cross-country Willie Randolph said at the end of last season that the team has a lot of momentum from the past few years, which he anticipates will lead to a MAC championship, since the Chippewas return all but a handful of their roster this season.
“Even though we fell short of a MAC championship, we did a lot of things that we’ll bring back next year,” Randolph said on Nov. 20.
Both the men’s and women’s teams will run only once in Mount Pleasant — the Jeff Drenth Memorial at 10 a.m. on Aug. 31 at Pleasant Hills Golf Course, 4452 E. Millbrook Rd.
Last year’s Jeff Drenth Memorial was unscored. It is an early-season race — the first the Chippewas will run this season — that teams like CMU will use to help coaches gauge the progress of their runners as the summer training season ends. Rachel McFarlane, of Michigan State, finished first last year with a time of 18:23.63.
Another benefit of the unscored race will give runners a chance to rid the pre-season nervousness and prepare for a run at the Mid-American Conference championship.
CMU sophomore runner Breanne Lesnar ran unattached last year and finished second with a time of 18:30.82.
Following CMU’s second-place finish in the MAC championship, the team finished the season ranked No. 7 in the Great Lakes Region of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association poll. The only team that finished ahead of Central Michigan was Toledo, ranked No. 5.
The Chippewas will also run several times in Madison, Wisc., against the NCAA-defending champion Wisconsin Badgers.
