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No. 1 ranking shows progress for women's cross country

October 29, 2014
<p>Senior Leah O'Connor stretches during practice on October 27, 2014, behind Jenison Field House. The teams next meet is the Big Ten Championship on Sunday in Iowa City, Iowa. Jessalyn Tamez/The State News</p>

Senior Leah O'Connor stretches during practice on October 27, 2014, behind Jenison Field House. The teams next meet is the Big Ten Championship on Sunday in Iowa City, Iowa. Jessalyn Tamez/The State News

Photo by Jessalyn Tamez | The State News

The women’s cross country team has been making an impact on the USTFCCCA rankings, rising to No. 1 as of Oct. 21 for the first time in program history. The men and women team’s head to Iowa City this weekend to compete at the Big Ten Championships.

“What’s more important is the progress we have made as a group and the stronger we have gotten,” redshirt senior Leah O’Connor said. “It’s encouraging to see that the hard work we put in is paying off and we want to continue on that.”

Since the beginning of the season in August, the women Spartans have rose from No. 4 to No. 1.

“It takes immense amount of work, certainly takes immense amount of talent. More importantly, it’s about the culture — their expectations of themselves away from practice, on the weekends when we don’t meet to run and they have to do their long runs...Those are the reasons why they have made the progress we have,” head coach Walt Drenth said. “It’s an honor to be ranked No. 1. They have certainly earned the right.”

O’Connor and redshirt sophomore Rachele Schulist have led the women’s team all season. Schulist received Big Ten’s athlete of the week award by the conference office on Oct. 18.

“I’m proud of them, proud of the work they have put in,” Drenth said. “They continue to evolve as students, as athletes, as people, and as leaders. How they’re doing now, it’s not really head-scratching.”

Big Ten schools that follow behind MSU are Michigan (No. 4), Wisconsin (No. 8), Ohio State (No. 19) and Minnesota (No. 20).

“There are a lot of things out of our control that day so we need to stick together and do what we can as a group,” O’Connor said. “I’m excited for it regardless of how we end up — if it doesn’t go the way we wanted to, we learn from it and if it does, then its just an encouragement to keep on the path.”

For the men, MSU is currently No. 22, which is an improvement from not being ranked at the beginning of the regular season. Other Big Ten teams above MSU are Wisconsin (No. 6), Michigan (No. 14) and Indiana (No. 20).

“We are looking to make a statement at the Big Ten meet and beat as many teams as possible and finish higher than we have in the past few years — top three would be what we are shooting for,” redshirt junior Caleb Rhynard said.

MSU women’s team currently holds the Big Ten Championship title, and the men took seventh place from 2013.

“I think we are in a really good position to do really well in this championship season. It couldn’t be better at this point,” O’Connor said.

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