Michigan
NCAA Championships
Wolverine Women Ready for NCAA Championships
11/17/2021 11:57:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
THIS WEEK
Saturday, Nov. 20 -- at NCAA Cross Country Championships (Tallahassee, Fla.), 10:20 a.m.
TV: ESPNU | Live Results | Live Video
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- For the 20th season in a row and the 28th time in the past 30 seasons, the national No. 17-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team is preparing to battle for its spot among the nation's best at the NCAA Cross Country Championships to be held Saturday morning (Nov. 20) at Florida State.
National team glory and individual honors will be on the line as the Wolverine women race six kilometers (3.73 miles) around the Apalachee Regional Park Cross Country Course in Tallahassee, Fla., starting at 10:20 a.m.
For the second year in a row, the Wolverines will run in front of a national television audience as part of the ESPNU broadcast of the national meet. Michigan also will be represented in the men's 10-kilometer (6.21-mile) race at 11:10 a.m. with its national No. 14-ranked squad.
The lineup that will be looking to secure its seventh top-10 finish in the past 10 editions of the NCAA meet will include seven runners among All-American Ericka VanderLende; All-America challengers Katelynne Hart and Kayla Windemuller; returning top-100 NCAA finishers Anne Forsyth and Samantha Tran; Alice Hill; Samantha Saenz; Julia Vanitvelt; Aurora Rynda; and Lucy Petee.
Conditions are expected to be dry with moderate winds between 5-10 mph. The projected high temperature for the day is 67 degrees, with the thermometer likely reading in the 50s at race time.
Live results will be available through Primetime Timing. Comprehensive in-race updates will be provided at each kilometer split checkpoint on both the team's official Twitter and its official Instagram Stories.
Things to Know: NCAA Championships
• The NCAA Championships are scored by standard NCAA rules, with the top five runners for each team accumulating points that correspond to their finishing place relative to other full teams in the field (there are also teams that have fewer than five runners at the NCAA Championships; their runners do not factor into the team scoring). The lower the team score, the better. Sixth and seventh runners' points do not directly factor into a team's score, but they serve as point displacers to runners who finish behind them.
• The top four teams in the standings make the NCAA podium and receive team trophies.
• The top 15 finishers are recognized by the NCAA with individual trophies.
• The top 40 finishers are recognized by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association as All-Americans, and receive medals for their efforts.
Team Notes
• Both of the Wolverines' postseason races to this point have been hotly contested affairs that came down to narrow point margins. Michigan was fourth at the Big Ten Championships, but only 13 points behind winner Minnesota, seven points behind runner-up Wisconsin and three points back from third-place Michigan State. Last Friday, the Wolverines finished third at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional, just 12 points behind Wisconsin for the region's second automatic berth to the NCAA Championships. The Wolverines advanced on an at-large berth.
• Just as they have all year long, the Wolverines' trio up front -- Ericka VanderLende, Katelynne Hart and Kayla Windemuller -- have shuffled around but remained near the lead of both postseason races. VanderLende led the way at Big Tens as the individual runner-up followed by Windemuller in sixth and Hart in 15th. Hart rotated to the front at regionals in sixth, followed by VanderLende in eighth and Windemuller in 11th.
• Windemuller in particular was impressive at regionals, recovering from a fall just before the midway point of the race to run faster than almost everyone else in the field to secure her 11th-place finish. She was the sixth-fastest woman in the field over the final three kilometers, and only two women were faster in the final kilometer.
• All three women will be vying for top-40 All-America honors. Only twice in school history have three women earned that award in the same season -- 2016 and 1994 in runner-up team finishes.
• Hart, VanderLende and Windemuller each earned All-Region honors for their performances at regionals, and so, too, did 23rd-place Samantha Tran in her best race of the year. After running as Michigan's No. 6 or No. 7 runner for most of the year, Tran recalled the form she showed in her 90th-place NCAA Championships finish last season en route to Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors.
• To maximize its team performance, the Wolverines will be looking for additional potential top-100 results from Anne Forsyth -- who was 46th at this meet in 2018 -- as well as Samantha Saenz and Alice Hill. Only twice in school history -- 1994 and 2018 -- have seven Michigan women finished top-100, and they made the podium as a team both times.
Course Description
Apalachee Regional Park Cross Country Course
Course Maps
Distance: Six kilometers (3.73 miles)
Max Elevation: 96 feet above sea level
Low Elevation: 44 feet above sea level
With only two major hills on the course and plenty of rolling downhill afterward -- to go along with firm grass and crushed gravel trails -- the Apalachee Regional Park Cross Country Course will be one of the fastest courses the Wolverines will have run this fall.
Distances selected to match with intermediate checkpoints in live results
First Kilometer: The race begins on a nearly half-mile straightaway that goes over rolling grassy downhills that gives way around an S-curve into a downhill that continues into the second kilometer.
Second Kilometer: The course continues over gently rolling hills into a U-turn at the farthest point from the starting line, before quickly making another sharp turn that descends to the course's lowest point.
Third Kilometer: Gently rolling hills over the first half of this split give way to the course's largest climb -- a roughly 50-foot ascent over about 200 meters of running to complete the first loop.
Fourth Kilometer: Mostly the same as the first kilometer.
Fifth Kilometer: Mostly the same as the second kilometer.
Sixth Kilometer: Mostly the same as the third kilometer, up until the point with less than a quarter-mile to go when the course veers off near the crest of the large hill toward the finish line. Brief gentle rolls give way to a descent to the finish over the final 200 meters.
Players Mentioned
