'M' freshmen not up to Big task

BRENDAN O'DONNELL/Daily

Freshmen Tom Greenless admitted that running in the Big Ten championships was somewhat intimidating for him. By Shawn Kemp

Daily Sports Writer

MADISON - Racing in a high school state cross country meet is nothing like facing your fears at a Big Ten cross country meet.

Michigan sent six freshmen out of its nine runners to compete at the Big Ten meet yesterday in Madison.

Junior Mark Pilja led the way for the seventh-place Wolverines with a fourth-place finish, but the freshmen came up short for the rest of the team.

Michigan coach Ron Warhurst felt his freshmen were overwhelmed in such an important race as the Big Ten meet.

"They acted really cool and everything, but I think they were scared," Warhurst said.

After blazing through the first mile of his 8K race in 4:45, freshman Dave Sage felt like "a little kid in a very big crowd."

"You're going out in 4:45 and still being swallowed up by 50 guys," he said.

The freshmen stayed in the respective positions they had claimed within the first mile of the race.

Freshmen Tom Greenless and Mason Ward led the post-Pilja pack, finishing 29th and 33rd, while Sage and junior Nate Hoffman rounded out the scoring for the Wolverines, finishing 51st and 53rd.

"We started out pretty far back and we never really moved," Warhurst said. "They were just running - they weren't racing."

Although Warhurst expected his freshmen to run the best race of their seasons, the conference meet opened their eyes to college competition.

Of all the adjustments the incoming freshmen had to make, increases in mileage and competition levels made the adjustment harder.

"In high school I ran 30 miles per week - now I'm running 65," Sage said.

For Greenless, the challenge was the increased talent pool.

"It was a whole new experience," Greenless said about Big Tens. "In the (high school) state meet, you're up front. This was a whole new world."

Ward said he felt young in the field of quality runners.

"We're all starting to come back down from our racing highs,"Ward said. "We had two freshmen within the top 30, which shows a good future, but we've still got a long way to come."

Warhurst does have all of his varsity runners returning next year, an advantage over other leading schools in the Big Ten. Wisconsin, the winner of yesterday's championship, will lose three of its top five runners, and Penn State will lose its top five.

However, the young Wolverines will have to work to conquer their anxieties about racing in large important meets such as the Big Ten meet to improve to an elite level.

"They didn't race very inspired today," Warhurst said. "I mean, they tried, but there was a lot of other people out there trying, too."

The Wolverines have two weeks until they make a bid for nationals in the NCAA districts, Nov. 11 in Ypsilanti.

After their performance at Big Tens, the Wolverines will have to finish in the top three to advance to nationals.