Forsyth, McGuire Earn Big Ten Postseason Awards
10/30/2018 3:00:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Fresh off the No. 7-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team's third consecutive Big Ten Championship team title this past weekend, the Wolverines picked up a pair of the conference's top honors on Tuesday (Oct. 30) as Anne Forsyth was announced as the Freshman of the Year and head coach Mike McGuire was named Coach of the Year.
Forsyth parlayed an exceptional eighth-place showing in her Michigan debut into Michigan's first Freshman of the Year honor since Erin Finn during the 2013 season. She becomes the 10th woman in Michigan women's cross country history to earn the award -- making Michigan the first school with double-digit Freshman of the Year honorees -- and the ninth to do so under McGuire's tutelage.
Voted unanimously as the winner in a poll of his Big Ten coaching peers, McGuire extended his conference record Coach of the Year award total to 12 to go along with the 12 Big Ten team titles his squads have won throughout his illustrious 27-season career at Michigan.
Big Ten Coach of the Year honors have been bestowed upon McGuire in more than one-third of the 34 seasons since the award's inception in 1985, with Wisconsin's Peter Tegen next on the all-time list with nine such plaudits.
The team title also secured McGuire the distinction of being the lone women's cross country coach in conference history to win three or more consecutive titles in three different decades. He kicked off his head coaching career with victories in 1992-94, claimed five-in-a-row from 2002-06 and has the current 2016-18 streak ongoing.
Despite graduating the top two runners from the 2017 title-winning team and with just three returners from the 2016 team that kicked off the current "three-peat" streak, the Wolverines picked up right where they left off in each of the past two seasons.
Led by All-Big Ten honorees in third-place Avery Evenson, eighth-place Forsyth and 11th-place Hannah Meier, the Wolverines put all five of their scorers in the top-20 to take down Michigan State, 57-75. Leading the Spartans by just six points with a kilometer to go, the Wolverines maintained pack discipline over the final kilometer and made strong moves late to secure the title.
Forsyth, running in her first race wearing the Block "M" after a pair of unattached competitions earlier in the season, ran fearlessly from the front for nearly the entire race. After checking in as the race leader at the halfway three-kilometer split point, she ultimately crossed the line as the top first-year runner in the field by two positions and six seconds over Penn State's Julia Paternain in 10th.
Behind Forsyth, Michigan also had the third- and fifth-best freshmen in the field in redshirt freshman Camille Davre and true freshman Jessi Larson.
The Wolverines were the deepest team in the field with nine top-50 finishers and had the smallest time spread between runners Nos. 1-5 at 29.6 seconds, indicative of the depth they had been displaying all season long.
Michigan won decisive team titles at the Nebraska Greeno/Dirksen Invitational and the Greater Louisville Classic before posting a strong runner-up finish in the Pre-National Invitational "White Race."
Forsyth joins Jennifer Armstrong (1990), Deanna Arnill (1994), Katie McGregor (1995), Marcy Akard (1996), Julie Froud (1997), Rebecca Walter (2002), Taylor Pogue (2011), Shannon Osika (2012) and Erin Finn (2013). Of those, Arnill, McGregor, Walter and Finn were Big Ten Champions either that year or later in their careers.
McGuire has previously won Big Ten Coach of the Year honors in 1992, 1993, 1994, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2012, 2016 and 2017.
Post-Race Interviews
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