Michigan
NCAA Championships
Wolverine Women Ready for Nationals
11/20/2019 4:52:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
» The No. 8-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team will take on the country's best teams at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Saturday (Nov. 23) at 11:15 a.m.
» All-America contender Ericka VanderLende leads one of the NCAA's deepest squads into battle as the Wolverines look for a third top-four finish in the past four years and a fifth-straight top-10 effort.
THIS WEEK
Saturday, Nov. 23 -- at NCAA Championships (Terre Haute, Ind.), 11:15 a.m.
TV: FloTrack | Live Results | Live Video
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The No. 8-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team will conclude its 2019 season on Saturday (Nov. 23) with a run for the national title at the NCAA Championships at Indiana State.
The Wolverine women will be on the starting line at 11:15 a.m. for the six-kilometer (3.73-mile) race over the grounds of the LaVern Gibson Championship Course, marking the 18th-straight season the squad will have lined up for a chance at the NCAA crown.
This also is the first time the NCAA Championships have been held at Indiana State since 2016, when the Wolverines were the narrow, one-point national runners-up for the national title.
Much has changed for Michigan in that time -- only Maddy Trevisan returns from the 2016 squad that matched the best performance in school history -- but the team is aiming to keep a recent streak of success at the national meet going nonetheless.
Michigan has finished top 10 nationally in six of the past seven seasons, including top-four finishes on the NCAA team podium last year (fourth), 2016 (runner-up) and 2013 (fourth). The squad has outperformed its pre-meet national polling rank in six of those seven seasons, including all three meets held in Terre Haute.
The 2019 squad tasked with continuing the upward momentum was among the deepest in the entire country at NCAA Regionals last Friday (Nov. 15). Six Michigan women earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors with top-25 finishes against runners from five other nationally ranked teams at the Great Lakes Regional. That total was surpassed only by national No. 1 Arkansas in the relatively much weaker South Central region.
Among that group -- and potentially in Michigan's lineup for the national meet -- are Ericka VanderLende, Anna West, Kathryn House, Micaela DeGenero, Emma Sloan and Trevisan. Other potential runners for U-M include Camille Davre, Alice Hill and Jena Metwalli.
Conditions at racetime are forecast to be cold -- with temperatures in the mid-30s -- cloudy and slightly breezy, playing right into the traditional strength of the Michigan women's cross country team.
In each of the last six instances of sub-40-degree temperatures at the NCAA Championships, the Wolverines have finished no lower than sixth place. Among those are five trips to the NCAA podium in 2018 (fourth), 2016 (second), 2013 (fourth), 2006 (third) and 2003 (fourth).
Fans can attend in-person, with parking available at the course (599 S. Tabortown St., Terre Haute, IN 47803). Admission to the meet is $10 -- cash only -- at the gate, with no advance ticket sales available.
The race also will be streamed online via FloTrack's subscription platform, with live results available for free via Primetime Timing. The official Michigan track and field / cross country social media accounts will also be providing updates and behind-the-scenes content throughout the day.
How the Championships Work
A total of 31 schools qualified to compete at the NCAA Championships as full teams. Teams are allowed seven runners, with the top-five finishers for each school constituting the scoring lineup. Teams with fewer than five finishers will not be counted in the final team standings.
Points are awarded to each runner based on their order of finish. Only runners who are members of one of the 31 teams are eligible to score. An additional 38 runners qualified as individuals; they will not be assigned points for their finishes.
Once all the runners have finished the race, the team with the lowest score will be crowned the team champion.
While runners Nos. 6 and 7 for each team do not technically contribute to their own teams' scores, they serve the purpose of adding an additional point to all the runners who finish behind them.
Though not a facet of the team scoring, the top-40 finishers will earn All-America honors from the USTFCCCA.
Wolverine Bites
• Most recent race in Terre Haute (2019): The Wolverines finished fourth at the Pre-National Invitational in mid-October, led by fifth-place VanderLende. Michigan (164 points) finished behind now-No. 4 Washington (84), No. 3 BYU (87) and No. 10 Colorado (126), and ahead of No. 9 Florida State (204), No. 21 Illinois (268), vote-receiving Boston College (358), No. 23 Ole Miss (376) and No. 30 Cornell (567). Michigan had six finishers total in the top-50, and the top two finishers in the open race.
• Most recent NCAA Championships in Terre Haute (2016): The Wolverines matched their best-ever NCAA Championships performance with a runner-up finish, losing out to Oregon by a single point. Erin Finn was the individual national runner-up in her final collegiate cross country race, and was joined as an All-American by Avery Evenson and Gina Sereno. Trevisan just missed All-America honors with a 46th-place finish. The national title ultimately came down to a footrace between the two teams' No. 5 runners -- Oregon's Maggie Schmaedick and Michigan's Jaimie Phelan -- who were separated at the line by less than one-tenth of a second in 64th and 65th, respectively.
• VanderLende has excelled in her first collegiate season and, specifically, her first collegiate postseason. After earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year and first team All-Big Ten honors at the conference championships, she backed it up with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional. She will attempt to follow teammate Camille Davre -- 29th at NCAAs a year ago -- as the top freshman at the NCAA Championships.
• West is showing flashes of the same form that earned her All-America honors at Baylor in 2017 prior to transferring to Michigan. After sitting out the first half of the season, West has gone from U-M's sixth runner at Pre-Nationals to its third at Big Tens and its second at Regionals, where she was 14th overall.
• House is poised to cap a breakthrough season with one final big step forward in the biggest race of her career. She has finished as Michigan's No. 2 or No. 3 in every race this season, including a 10th-place finish at Big Tens for second team All-Conference honors.
• After struggling with depth at the Big Ten Championships, the Wolverine women had it in spades at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional. Though they were runners-up to Michigan State, it was the Wolverines who had the most All-Region (top-25) finishers in the race with six.
• Key to that depth were DeGenero and Sloan, both of whom had their best races of the season at the right time. DeGenero was just 69th at Pre-Nationals, but finished 18th at regionals and was one of the race's strongest runners over the second half. Sloan was the Pre-Nationals open race winner, and has parlayed that performance into back-to-back showings at Michigan's No. 5 runner at Big Tens and Regionals.
• Though she has been somewhat out-of-sorts in her past two races as Michigan's No. 8 and No. 6 runner at Big Tens and Regionals, respectively, Trevisan has plenty of big-race potential within her. In addition to finishing 46th at NCAAs as a freshman in 2016, she also took 95th as a sophomore in 2017. Heading into the NCAA Championships in 2016, she was coming off of 35th and 22nd-place finishes at Big Tens and Regionals before reeling off the biggest result of her career, to date.
• While she only has shown flashes of the All-America form in which she finished 2018, Davre still could be a force to be reckoned with. Her best race of the season came in a 26th-place finish at Big Tens earlier this month, as she finished as Michigan's No. 4 runner.
Players Mentioned
