Last Friday, the women’s cross country team added the Great Lakes Regional title to their season accomplishments. The men’s team finished second behind Wisconsin. Both teams automatically qualified for the NCAA Nationals, which will take place Saturday in Terre Haute, Indiana.
“I thought we had outstanding performances on both sides,” head coach Walt Drenth said. “I think they’ve got great momentum. They have been practicing well, recovering very quickly, so I’m excited to get there and see how it turns out Saturday.”
Redshirt senior Leah O’Connor won the women’s 6K and crossed the finish line with redshirt sophomore Rachele Schulist. At the 2K mark, there was a downhill stint where O’Connor and Schulist ran hard and spaced themselves from the others. O’Connor and Schulist both finished at 19:45.
“We crossed the line pretty much together — technically I won. It was cool to go through the race with her and cross the line together,” O’Connor said. “We ended up running the last thousand meters of the course pretty controlled because we had some space between the other girls. It was nice to be able to run comfortably for a while.”
O’Connor explained that the intensity of regionals was not high because “everyone is running pretty controlled and doing what they need to do to get to nationals.”
Redshirt junior Caleb Rhynard led the men, placing in fourth place for the 10K at 30:17. The next Spartan to finish was redshirt senior Ben Miller (30:31). After placing fifth at Big Ten championships behind Wisconsin, Michigan, Penn State and Indiana, the MSU men’s team came out above Michigan and Indiana at regionals.
“We have been on the up and up all season long. Big Ten’s we thought we could do better than we did,” Rhynard said. “Regionals shows that we were capable of beating some of those teams.”
According to Drenth, the coaching staff does not change how they prepare for any championship meets. The only adjustments made are relative to the course. The team focuses on aspects they can control, like their individual performances, and not those they can’t, like weather.
“The crappier the weather, the happier we are, honestly, because it teaches us to be a lot tougher,” O’Connor said. “We revel in the crappy weather.”
The Spartans hit the road this weekend to run Saturday at LaVern Gibson Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Indiana.
