Season Review: 2017 Women's Track and Field
7/19/2017 1:10:00 PM | Women's Track & Field
• Team Captains: Aaron Howell, Claire Kieffer-Wright, Jaimie Phelan, Gina Sereno
• Big Ten Conference (Indoor): 7th Place
• Big Ten Conference (Outdoor): 5th Place
• NCAA Championships (Indoor): tied-14th Place
• NCAA Championships (Outdoor): tied-21st Place
Led by the program's first outdoor national champion since 2009 and a host of individual Big Ten champions, head coach James Henry, associate head coach Mike McGuire and the University of Michigan women's track and field team had a 2017 season for the record books. For the second year in a row and the ninth time in school history, the Wolverines posted top-25 team finishes at both the NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor Championships, largely behind the strength of its "bread and butter," the distance events. Outdoor national champion Jaimie Phelan and indoor national runner-up Erin Finn spearheaded those efforts, along with four additional women who won Big Ten titles.
Team Highlights
• Behind national 5,000-meter runner-up Finn and the fifth-place distance medley relay quartet of Jamie Morrissey, Jade Harrison, Phelan, and Gina Sereno, the Wolverines scored 12 points at the NCAA Indoor Championships for a four-way tie for 14th place. Sereno also took 13th individually in the 3,000-meter final.
• Phelan accounted for Michigan's 10 points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, courtesy of her historic and dramatic victory in the 1,500-meter final. Those 10 points were good enough to tie the Wolverines for 21st in the team standings. Though they didn't score, Sereno was 13th for Michigan at 5,000 meters and Claire Borchers took 17th in the steeplechase.
• Sereno led the charge in Michigan's fifth-place Big Ten Outdoor Championships finish with 79 points, sweeping the conference titles at both 5,000 and 10,000 meters. She was joined atop the podium by fellow team captains Aaron Howell in the heptathlon, Claire Kieffer-Wright in the high jump and Phelan at 1,500 meters. Phelan was also third at 800 meters, leading a distance corps that posted eight different scoring performances. Also notable was Borchers' runner-up finish in the steeplechase.
• That trend of middle-distance and distance dominance was one that stretched between both the indoor and outdoor conference meets. Michigan was one of three Big Ten teams to score in all 11 mid-distance/distance events at both the Big Ten Indoor and Outdoor Championships, winning titles in four of them. Sereno accounted for three.
Individual Highlights
• Not only did Phelan account for all 10 of Michigan's points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships as the 1,500-meter winner, she earned herself a place in the Michigan and NCAA history and the memories of all those watching. At the very back of the 12-woman pack entering the final lap, Phelan made a hard surge down the backstretch between 300 and 200 meters left to catapult into the lead ahead of three former national champions. Coming down the homestretch toward the finish line, Phelan was able to outlean a field that had stretched five lanes wide to edged out Arkansas' Nikki Hiltz by .02 for the second-smallest margin of victory in meet history and Michigan's first-ever women's 1,500-meter title. She crossed the line in 4:13.78 after running a career-best 4:11.92 in the semifinals two days earlier -- a time that marked a nearly four-second improvement from her best time as of a year ago.
• Finn was the star of the NCAA Indoor Championships for Michigan, running 15:27.36 in the 5,000-meter final to take second overall for the fourth time in her illustrious career. Though she was second to Missouri's Karissa Schweizer on the podium, Finn now stands alone in collegiate history as the lone woman to run 15:30 or faster in two different seasons at the NCAA Indoor Championships. While her outdoor season was derailed by an injury, she made a triumphant return for the USATF Outdoor Championships with a new school-record 32:00.46 to finish sixth over 10,000 meters.
• No distance runner was more impressive at the Big Ten level in 2017 than Sereno, who amassed three Big Ten titles over the course of the year. First, she ran a career-best 9:07.00 in the Big Ten indoor 3,000 to hold off Indiana's Katherine Receveur by .04 of a second in a dramatic sprint to the finish. Fans would be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu in mid-May as Sereno and Receveur once again found themselves in a dash to the finish in the outdoor 5,000 final. Sereno once again prevailed, crossing the line in 16:23.24 to edge her Hoosier rival by .05. In between, she also claimed the Big Ten 10,000-meter crown on the first day of the outdoor meet, becoming the first woman since 1989 to sweep the 5,000- and 10,000-meter titles in back-to-back seasons. At the NCAA Indoor Championships, she also ran the anchor leg of the fifth-place distance medley relay and took 13th in the 3,000-meter final.
• While the distance squad did a lot of heavy lifting throughout the track and field season, the field athletes showed up in full force at the Big Ten Championships. After finishing third in the indoor pentathlon, Howell claimed her first career Big Ten title outdoors with a victory in the seven-event heptathlon. Battling back from fourth place after the fifth event, the junior scored 5,359 points to win by 36 points. The very same day, Kieffer-Wright claimed the high jump title on the strength of three third-attempt clearances, including a career-best 1.84m (6-0.75). Kieffer-Wright -- who also stars on the Michigan volleyball team -- claimed U-M's first Big Ten outdoor high jump title since 2001.
• New to the Wolverines this year, freshman sprinter Harrison made a significant impact on the program. Not only did she score at the NCAA Indoor Championships as a member of the fifth-place distance medley relay, but she also twice broke the Michigan school record in the indoor 400 meters at the Big Ten Championships and was only one spot on the national descending order list from making the NCAA Indoor Championships as an individual. She ran 52.84 to finish fourth at the Big Ten Indoor Championships, and became one of just three women in Michigan history outdoors to run sub-12.00, sub-24.00 and sub-54.00 at 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 meters, respectively.
Honors and Awards
Erin
Finn
Jade
Harrison
Jamie
Morrissey
Jaimie
Phelan
Gina
Sereno
James
Henry
Mike
McGuire
National Champion
Jaimie Phelan, 1,500 meters (outdoors)
All-Americans
Jaimie Phelan (first team relay indoors and first team outdoors)
Erin Finn (first team outdoors)
Gina Sereno (first team relay indoors, second team indoors and outdoors)
Jade Harrison (first team relay indoors)
Jamie Morrissey (first team relay indoors)
Big Ten Conference
All-Big Ten (First Team): Gina Sereno, Aaron Howell, Claire Kieffer-Wright, Jaimie Phelan
Sportsmanship Award: Gina Sereno (indoor), Gina McNamara (outdoor)
NCAA Great Lakes Region
Outdoor Assistant Coach of the Year: Mike McGuire
Big Ten Athlete of the Week
Erin Finn (Jan. 18, Jan. 25, Feb. 15)
CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year (T&F/XC)
Erin Finn, Sr., Biochemistry
CoSIDA Academic All-District
Erin Finn, Sr., Biochemistry
Big Ten Distinguished Scholar
Rachel Barrett, Jr., Movement Science
Emma Bauer, So., Biopsychology, Cognition & Neuroscience
Tori Chapin, Jr., Business Administration
Kali Dent, Jr., Neuroscience
Erin Finn, Sr., Biochemistry
Kieran Gallagher, Gr., Epidemiology (MPH)
Kira Garry, Gr., Environmental Health Science (MPH)
Christina Hallmann, So., Psychology
Sophie Linn, Sr., Sport Management
Meghan Marias, Jr., Linguistics and Psychology
Sarah Zieve, Sr., Public Policy
Academic All-Big Ten
Sydney Badger, Jr., Movement Science
Bailey Baker, Jr., Health And Fitness
Claire Borchers, Jr., International Studies / Spanish
Tori Chapin, Jr., Business Administration
Meg Darmofal, So., Movement Science
Erin Finn, Sr., Biochemistry
Jeryne Fish, So., Undeclared
Erika Fluehr, Gr., Management
Kieran Gallagher, Gr., Epidemiology
Kira Garry, Gr., Environmental Health Science
Christina Hallmann, So., Psychology
Aaron Howell, Sr., International Studies and Sociology
Kayla Keane, So., Movement Science
Ellie Leonard, Jr., Biochemistry
Sophie Linn, Sr., Sport Management
Meghan Marias, Jr., Linguistics and Psychology
Gina McNamara, Gr., Management
Mary Kate McNamara, So., Economics
Hannah Meier, Sr., Health and Fitness
Courtney Munley, Sr., Business Administration
Kate Owens, So., Movement Science
Faith Reynolds, So., Undeclared
Gina Sereno, Sr., Mechanical Engineering
Sarah Uhlian, Sr., Biopsychology, Cognition and Neuroscience
Sarah Zieve, Sr., Public Policy
Players Mentioned
