McGuire Named Regional Coach of the Year for Fourth Straight Season
11/13/2018 12:36:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- For the fourth year in a row, and the seventh time in the last eight years, University of Michigan women's cross country head coach Mike McGuire on Tuesday (Nov. 14) was named the Great Lakes Regional Women's Coach of the Year for the 2018Â cross country season by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
McGuire, in his 27th season at the helm of the Michigan women's distance program, was chosen as the winner of the award by a vote of his peers from the Great Lakes Region.
As the region's top women's coach, he will be honored at the pre-NCAA Cross Country Championships banquet this Thursday (Nov. 15) in Madison, Wisconsin, ahead of the championship race on Saturday (Nov. 17) at 10:45 a.m. CST.
This marks the 12th time in McGuire's career that he has earned Regional Coach of the Year honors, to go along with 13 Big Ten Coach of the Year awards. Including this season, he has swept the two coaching awards 10 times in his career.
His No. 6-ranked Wolverine women are headed back to the NCAA Championships for the 17th consecutive year, marking the third-longest active qualifying streak in the nation behind Stanford and Michigan State.
His 2018 squad clinched an automatic berth to nationals after winning the NCAA Great Lakes Regional with 46 points to Wisconsin's 82, led by top-10 finishes from third-place Anne Forsyth, fourth-place Avery Evenson and ninth-place Hannah Meier.
Those three women earned All-Big Ten honors, with Forsyth being named the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, to lead the Wolverines to a victory at the Big Ten Championships, 57-75, over Michigan State.
The Big Ten title was Michigan's third in a row, marking the Wolverines' longest streak of titles since five consecutive from 2002-06. Combining those two streaks with a stretch of three consecutive titles in 1992-94, McGuire became the only women's cross country coach in Big Ten history to win three consecutive titles or more in three different decades.
McGuire and the Wolverines will finish their season this Saturday with the NCAA Cross Country Championships at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison. The women's race goes off at 10:45 a.m. CST, followed by the men's race at 11:45 a.m. CST. Both races can be streamed live with a Flotrack Pro subscription, and the meet can be followed with live results from Record Timing and social media updates from @UMichTrack on Twitter and Instagram.
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