Prior to its trip to State College, the Michigan women's cross country team had a mission - to become familiar with the course which will host the Big Ten Championships later this fall.
This weekend the Wolverines dominated the field in the Spiked Shoe Invitational and familiarized themselves with its twists and turns, breezing to first place with a score of 30 points.
In contrast, second-place Bucknell tallied 67 points, with host Penn State finishing a distant third with 111 points.
Michigan was again paced by junior standout Lisa Ouellet, who finished second overall with a time of 17:43. Senior Elizabeth Kampfe came in fourth in 18:12, followed by junior Katy Radkewich in fifth place at 18:19.
"Our first race this year (against Michigan State) we were a bit conservative, but this time out we had a good front-runner so our times were better," Michigan coach Mike McGuire said. "Overall, it was a good performance."
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| DANA LINNANE/Daily Senior Elizabeth Kampfe, here in 1998 postseason action, finished fourth overall in State College this past weekend. |
"The girls were able to get a bit of a feel for (the course)," McGuire said. "They didn't think it was that tough during warm-ups, but I think that they had more respect for it after running in the meet. They've made some subtle upgrades, and it's a pretty difficult course."
In lieu of a dominating lead runner such as Katie McGregor, the Wolverines also wanted to work on running closer together because the pack time is imperative in cross country. McGuire said he felt the team succeeded in achieving this goal.
"We wanted to keep a closer pack going in, and (Saturday) we had a 33 second gap between our first and fifth runners, which isn't bad," McGuire said. "I think we're capable of doing 20-25 seconds from runners one to seven."
This year, with a large crop of freshmen, Michigan will be looking for stellar performances from its group of upperclassmen. This weekend the Wolverines got them.
"Elizabeth Kampfe was much better than she had been, and Katy Radkewich was solid as usual," McGuire said. "Erin White had been fighting an upset stomach, but she ran through it. We also got another competitive effort from Katie Ryan."
With the season just barely underway, the team is looking to make consistent improvement from week to week.
As the year progresses towards the conference and national championships, the Wolverines will have to continually refine and upgrade their performance to meet the challenges that come their way.
"Jane Martineau had been fighting an illness and didn't finish the race, so that was our one setback," McGuire said. "Other than that, we had a good showing. There was some form of improvement throughout the team this weekend."
Although Ouellet led the way for the second straight event, the rest of the Wolverines' finishing order was rearranged after the season's first loss. The lack of a set pecking order didn't bother McGuire.
"Our order changed a little bit, but I'm not too concerned," McGuire said. "The most important thing for us was to tighten up our pack, from one to nine.
"We're stepping up in level of toughness, starting next week at Indiana, and the girls know that the job's never totally done."
09-20-99
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