Michigan
NCAA Great Lakes Regional
Wolverine Women Finish Third at Great Lakes Regional
11/12/2021 2:02:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
Site: Evansville, Ind. (Angel Mounts Historic Site)
Event: NCAA Great Lakes Regional
Distance: Six kilometers (3.73 miles )
U-M Team Finish: 3rd of 31 teams (81 points)
Top U-M Individual: Katelynne Hart, 6th (20:09.2)
Next U-M Event: Saturday, Nov. 13 -- NCAA Championships Selection Show (NCAA.com), 5 p.m.
• Complete Results (PDF)
EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Despite a strong finish in the closing kilometers of their race, the national No. 12-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team finished third as a team at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional at Angel Mounds Historic Site on Friday morning (Nov. 12), and will have to wait to see if it qualified for its 20th-consecutive nationals berth until the NCAA Selection Show on Saturday (Nov. 13).
Led by four All-Region finishers in sixth-place Katelynne Hart, eighth-place Ericka VanderLende, 11th-place Kayla Windemuller and 23rd-place Samantha Tran, the Wolverines were able to overtake rival Michigan State in the final kilometer of the six-kilometer (3.73-mile) race for the third-place spot in the team standings, 81-87 but came up short of catching either winner Wisconsin (56 points) or runner-up Notre Dame (69).
The Wolverine scoring lineup was rounded out by Alice Hill in 33rd.
The top two teams in each of the nine NCAA Regional Championships run on Friday advance automatically to next Saturday's (Nov. 20) NCAA Championships at Florida State. All other teams, including Michigan, now await the at-large selection process for the remaining 13 berths to Tallahassee.
The NCAA Selection Show will be streamed live Saturday (Nov. 13) at 5 p.m. on NCAA.com.
Michigan settled into third place early on and held that position for the first half of the race, with VanderLende, Hart and Windemuller running top-10 for much of that time. Windemuller dropped to 25th at the halfway point, but would rally strong in the second half of the race to work her way back up to 11th.
Of all seven Wolverine runners, she covered the last 3.05 kilometers -- just shy of two miles -- in 10:15.6 to move up 14 spots, faster than either Hart (10:16.0) or VanderLende (10:18.9) during that time. In fact, only five runners on the entire course covered that distance faster than Windemuller.
By the four-kilometer split, the Wolverines had fallen behind Michigan State in the intermediate team standings, 89-99, though Michigan was on the move at that point thanks to Windemuller and Tran, who moved up five spots to 27th.
Hill was the big mover in the penultimate kilometer as she improved five spots to 34th, as Michigan remained within 10 points of the Spartans, 81-91, for third and moved to within 13 points of Wisconsin in auto-qualifying territory.
Michigan proved strong enough to overtake Michigan State in the final kilometer, thanks in large part to the eight spots gained by Windemuller as she ran the third-fastest split on the course during that time. The rest of the scoring lineup held firm down the homestretch, combining to neither lose nor gain any spots late.
Full Michigan Results
6. Katelynne Hart -- 20:09.2
8. Ericka VanderLende -- 20:10.3
11. Kayla Windemuller -- 20:12.3
23. Samantha Tran -- 20:28.6
33. Alice Hill -- 20:40.4
55. Samantha Saenz -- 21:08.1
61. Anne Forsyth -- 21:12.8
Full Team Standings
1. No. 25 Notre Dame -- 56 points
2. No. 13 Wisconsin -- 69 points
3. No. 12 Michigan -- 81 points
4. No. 16 Michigan State -- 87 points
5. Butler (RV) -- 119 points
6. Ohio State -- 181 points
7. Toledo (RV) -- 190 points
8. Indiana (RV) -- 222 points
9. Purdue -- 226 points
10. Miami (Ohio) -- 349 points
11. Cincinnati -- 360 points
12. Akron -- 389 points
13. Dayton -- 430 points
14. Bowling Green -- 432 points
15. Milwaukee -- 498 points
16. Oakland -- 509 points
17. Ohio -- 529 points
18. Youngstown St. -- 533 points
19. Eastern Michigan -- 554 points
20. Ball State -- 574 points
21. Central Michigan -- 576 points
22. Indiana State -- 605 points
23. Marquette -- 606 points
24. Kent State -- 620 points
25. Xavier (Ohio) -- 663 points
26. Wright State -- 664 points
27. Evansville -- 879 points
28. Wis.-Green Bay -- 904 points
29. Valparaiso -- 931 points
30. Cleveland St. -- 951 points
31. Purdue Fort Wayne -- 957 points
Players Mentioned
