Season Preview: 2018 Michigan Women's Cross Country
8/22/2018 4:09:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
» Despite the graduation of two All-Americans, a corps of seniors will lead a strong Michigan women's cross country team.
» Cross country All-American Avery Evenson and track All-Americans Claire Borchers and Haley Meier will be joined by All-American Baylor transfer Anna West to create a strong foundation.
» A younger group of Wolverines, led by Maddy Trevisan, will bolster that veteran group.
» Michigan currently holds the third-longest active NCAA Championships qualification streak of any women's team in the nation at 16 years.
Far from a rebuild despite the departure of two All-Americans, the University of Michigan women's cross country team will rely on a corps of veterans and an influx of newcomer talent as they look to defend their back-to-back Big Ten titles and a streak of top-10 success at the NCAA Championships.
Overseen by 27th-year head coach Mike McGuire and led by All-Americans in Claire Borchers, Avery Evenson, Haley Meier and newcomer Anna West, the Wolverines are in position to uphold and maintain the program's lofty legacy of success on the trails.
The women have been practicing since Aug. 21, and departed on Aug. 22, for their eight-day preseason camp at the University of Michigan Biological Station near Pellston, Michigan. Before they left, they worked out on the hills of the Nichols Arboretum, a longtime favorite training location for Michigan.
Workout No. 1 for the #Team40 women is in the books! The road to a third consecutive @bigten team title begins with the hills at the Arb. #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/4fAybV70nG
— Michigan Cross Country / Track & Field (@UMichTrack) August 21, 2018
Wolverine Bites
• The Wolverines will be without the services of 2017 All-Americans Jamie Morrissey and Gina Sereno after the duo exhausted its eligibility in 2017-18. The squad will be looking for someone to play the same role Morrissey did last fall as a significant breakout star on the trails, and for someone to develop into the two-time cross country All-American that Sereno was.
• However, the team will return a cross country All-American in Evenson (18th in 2016), two track All-Americans and Big Ten champions in Borchers and Meier, and a near-All-American in Maddy Trevisan (46th in 2016). Both Evenson and Meier were granted sixth years of eligibility; Evenson for her 2016 Olympic pursuits in the triathlon and Meier for seasons lost to injury.
• Michigan will also get a boost from the addition of Baylor transfer Anna West, who was an All-American last fall with a 40th-place finish for the Bears. Joining her as reinforcements for the veteran core are, among others, redshirt freshmen in Alice Hill and Camille Davre and first-year Wolverines Anne Forsyth and Olivia Theis.
• That core group will look to lead Michigan to three straight Big Ten titles for the first time since McGuire's women reeled off five conference titles in a row from 2002-06, as well as aim to capture its fourth consecutive Great Lakes Region title. The Wolverines have won the region six of the last seven seasons.
• Having appeared at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in each of the past 16 seasons, the Wolverines currently hold the third-longest active streak of NCAA Championships qualifying of any women's team in the nation. Only Stanford (25 years) and Michigan State (17) carry longer streaks at present.
Breaking Down the Roster
• Borchers had a breakthrough fall of 2017 that led into a breakthrough 2018 on the track. She was a top-five scorer for Michigan in all seven of her races, culminating in a 98th-place finish at nationals. She then went on to win the Big Ten title and place fourth nationally in the 3,000-meter steeplechase on the track. With her track eligibility now exhausted, Borchers has her sights set solely on a strong fall finale.
• After an up-and-down 2017 fall season, Evenson will look to regain the form she demonstrated as an 18th-place national finisher at the 2016 NCAA Championships. Back for just one final cross country season, thanks to an Olympic redshirt from her pursuit of a 2016 Olympics berth in the triathlon, Evenson will look to improve upon her 157th-place finish at nationals in 2017.
• Like Evenson, Trevisan will be aiming to recapture the magic that led to her 46th-place NCAA Championships finish as a freshman in 2016. Trevisan was a reliable scorer for the Wolverines in 2017, earning All-Region honors and placing 95th as the U-M No. 3 runner at nationals, and will look to build on that in the fall of 2018.
• Haley Meier returns to Michigan for a sole cross country season after being granted a sixth year of eligibility due to previous years missed due to injury. Meier grew into a scorer for the Wolverines by season's end -- she was Michigan's No. 5 at both regionals and nationals -- and demonstrated her long-distance chops on the track with a 16:07 career best at 5,000 meters. She will be joined by twin sister Hannah Meier, who is also back for a sixth year of eligibility.
• Joining that veteran corps is Baylor transfer Anna West, who was the 40th-place finisher at the 2017 NCAA Championships for the Bears. She was also the Big 12 runner up and third at the NCAA South Central Regional. In just two seasons on the track, she scored with top-eight finishes at the Big 12 Championships seven times.
• No first-year Wolverines competed for the squad in 2017, so a full redshirt freshman class will get its first official collegiate action in 2018. Among them are Alice Hill -- who finished seventh in the IAAF World U20 Championships steeplechase this summer -- and decorated Wisconsin high schooler Camille Davre, who has been ranked by FloTrack as the No. 6 redshirt freshman woman in the country.
• Michigan's incoming first-year class is heralded as among the best in the nation, and could make an immediate impact this fall. At the head of the class are a pair of top-five Foot Lock Nationals finishers in Olivia Theis (third in 2017) and hometown Pioneer High School star Anne Forsyth (fifth in 2016).
2018 Schedule
Starting with the five-kilometer Michigan Open at Hudson Mills Metropark on Friday, Aug. 31 at 10:30 a.m., the regular season will all build toward the Big Ten Championships on Oct. 28 in Lincoln, Nebraska; the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on Nov. 9 in Terre Haute, Indiana; and the NCAA Cross Country Championships on Nov. 17 in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Wolverines will travel to Nebraska, Louisville and Wisconsin during the regular season.
Players Mentioned
