Season Review: 2018 Michigan Women's Track and Field
7/19/2018 10:20:00 AM | Women's Track & Field
NCAA Outdoor Championships: T40th (5 points)
Big Ten Outdoor Championships: T5th (60 points)
Big Ten Indoor Championships: 8th (60 points)
The University of Michigan women's track and field team, led by head coaches James Henry and Jerry Clayton, recently capped off a 2018 campaign that saw the Wolverines achieve acclaim on the Big Ten, NCAA, USA and world levels before all was said and done.
Despite battling through untimely injuries, the Wolverines managed to rack up six All-America honors and six Big Ten titles en route to a fifth-place tie at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships. Two school records fell by the wayside and many additional all-time performances were added to the record books. The year ended on a high note as one of its rising sophomores -- and, indeed, rising stars -- performed at the highest level on the biggest of world stages at the IAAF World U20 Championships.
The year also saw the Wolverines open up the state-of-the-art U-M Indoor Track Building at the Athletics South Performance and Competition Center. Michigan hosted four home events and was awarded the duty of hosting the 2019 Big Ten Indoor Championships.
Distance
If any single event defined Michigan women's track and field at the highest level in 2018, that event would likely be the steeplechase. Not only did Claire Borchers and Sarah Zieve earn All-America honors at the NCAA Championships, but newcomer Alice Hill finished seventh at the IAAF World U20 Championships in just her third attempt at the event. Borchers was the fastest Wolverine steepler of the year, as she clocked a career-best 9:48.33 to finish fourth in a sprint finish at the NCAA Championships to close out a senior year that also saw her win the Big Ten title in the event. While Borchers ran from the front of the pack in those races, teammate Zieve reeled off blistering kicks to clinch her Big Ten bronze, her qualifying spot to nationals and her 16th-place finish at NCAAs. Together, they were the first pair of Michigan teammates to earn All-America honors in the steeplechase.
After Borchers and Zieve concluded their All-American steeplechase careers, Hill was just beginning hers. A week after NCAAs, Hill ran her first steeplechase -- in fact, her first track race farther than a mile -- in 10:31.07 to finish runner-up at the USATF Junior Championships and qualify for the IAAF World U20 Championships. In the prelims there, she ran a massive career-best 10:09.15 to qualify for the final and set a new Michigan freshman record. In the final, she clocked 9:57.04 for seventh to move to No. 3 on the all-time Michigan list and No. 5 on the all-time USA Junior (U20) list.
Following up on her breakthrough All-American cross country campaign (a follow-up that was deferred to the outdoor season as she had no remaining eligibility indoors), Jamie Morrissey made some more history during her final campaign in the Maize and Blue. She clocked a blazing 4:11.48 performance at Stanford over 1,500 meters for the fastest regular-season time in Michigan history, positioning her among the nation's elite. She would go on to win her first individual Big Ten title, claiming the 800-meter crown in her seventh career final in the event between indoors and outdoors.
Erin Finn made the most of a season that was twice interrupted by injury, breaking a school record and winning a Big Ten title along the way. She provided arguably the Wolverine women's top moment of the inaugural season in the new facility, running 8:58.69 over 3,000 meters to not only break her own school record, but also the overall state of Michigan all-comers record. Injury would befall her before the indoor postseason, but she would return to form in time to win the Big Ten Outdoor 10,000-meter title in wire-to-wire fashion. The conference win marked her 10th career individual Big Ten title between indoor, outdoor and cross country -- the most in program history. Once more, however, injury would rear its head and Finn would be forced to the sidelines for the remainder of the year.
Only one distance runner for the Wolverines advanced to both the indoor and outdoor NCAA Championships in 2018: Haley Meier. Competing in her final year of track eligibility, Meier clocked a blistering indoor mile of 4:35.69 during the regular season en route to winning the Big Ten title both in the mile and as part of the distance medley relay, and placed 12th at nationals. After a more inconsistent outdoor regular season, Meier was the Big Ten runner-up at 1,500 meters and advanced all the way to the NCAA Championships, where she finished 18th overall.
Five-time Big Ten champion Gina Sereno was not able to add to her conference title count in a redshirt senior season marred by injury, but she was able to re-establish herself among the nation's top distance runners indoors. She clocked 9:01.62 over 3,000 meters during the regular season to qualify her for the NCAA Indoor Championships, where she would finish 15th overall. Injury kept her off the track for much of the outdoor season, though she made one final run at Big Ten glory in a 12th-place 10,000-meter finish.
Field Events
Despite scoring a new career-best 5,541 points in the heptathlon during the outdoor regular season, Aaron Howell found herself on the outside looking in when it came to NCAA Championships qualification. Only 24 women advance to nationals; Howell was ranked No. 25. With just days to go before the championships, however, injury forced out one of the qualifiers and Howell was suddenly in the field. She would move up to 18th by the end of the week, wrapping up a senior season that also saw her take 12th at NCAA Indoors and third at Big Ten Indoors in the pentathlon, and fourth in the Big Ten Outdoor heptathlon.
After winning the 2017 Big Ten Outdoor title in the high jump, Claire Kieffer-Wright established herself as the woman to beat with an indoor title in 2018. After clearing a 1.84m (6-feet, 0.5 inches) bar during the regular season that would ultimately clinch her trip to the NCAA Championships, she outdueled Nebraska's Petra Luteran in a tiebreak win for the Big Ten title. She would leave Big Tens with an injury, however, that hindered her to just a 15th-place finish at NCAAs and kept her away from the outdoor circuit. Notably, Kieffer-Wright earned All-America honors both in the high jump and volleyball in 2017-18.
Katt Miner got her big breakthrough in the high jump at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships, leaping to eighth place with third-attempt clearances on back-to-back heights at 1.71m (5-7.25) and 1.76m (5-9.25). The effort not only added a point to the Wolverines' team effort, it also qualified her for the NCAA East Prelims.
Headlining the throws corps for Michigan was hammer thrower Courtney Jacobsen, who improved her standing as the No. 2 hammer thrower in school history. With a regular-season mark of 59.86m (196-5), Jacobsen went on to finish eighth at the Big Ten Championships for the second year in a row and 21st at the NCAA East Prelims in the meet's deepest field since the Prelims system began in 2010.
Sprints
Michigan's 2018 campaign in the sprints and hurdles was headlined by a school record in the 4x400 relay indoors and several near-school-record runs by the 4x100 relay team outdoors. The 4x400 team of Meghan Marias, Chloe Foster, Julia Hall and Jade Harrison topped the indoor school record in a 3:37.91 showing at Big Tens that was good for fifth place. Outdoors, Marias and Harrison joined with Lauren Morgan and Torisa Johnson to nearly topple the 20-year-old outdoor 4x100 record of 45.01, running 45.07 for eighth at the Big Ten Championships.
Harrison was the top individual from the U-M sprints and hurdles corps during 2018, running a leg of the indoor Big Ten champion distance medley relay, advancing to the NCAA East Prelims at both 200 and 400 meters, finishing eighth in the Big Ten Outdoor 200-meter final, and leading the Wolverines in the 100, 200 and 400. Though aided by a heavy tailwind, her 23.18 clocking over 200 meters at the NCAA Prelims is the No. 2 time in school history in all conditions.
Foster had a strong first-year campaign at Michigan, very nearly breaking the Michigan freshman record in the 400-meter hurdles. Her 59.72 at the Big Ten Championships made her just the second woman in Michigan history to break a minute in the event in their first year as a Wolverine, joining Katie LaValley from 2006 (59.45). The time also ranked her No. 10 in school history, which is also where she would finish on the all-time 400-meters list with a 54.86 performance.
Honors and Awards
Erin
Finn
Claire
Borchers
Aaron
Howell
Claire
Kieffer-Wright
Haley
Meier
Gina
Sereno
Sarah
Zieve
Google Cloud Academic All-America
First Team: Erin Finn
Only student-athlete in Michigan history to earn first-team Academic All-America honors in three different academic years
AAU James E. Sullivan Award
Finalist: Erin Finn
USTFCCCA All-America
First Team: Claire Borchers (outdoor / steeplechase)
Second Team: Aaron Howell (indoor / pentathlon)
Second Team: Claire Kieffer-Wright (indoor / high jump)
Second Team: Haley Meier (indoor / mile)
Second Team: Gina Sereno (indoor / 3,000 meters)
Second Team: Sarah Zieve (outdoor / steeplechase)
USTFCCCA Honorable Mention
Aaron Howell (outdoor / heptathlon)
Haley Meier (outdoor / 1,500 meters)
Big Ten Champions / First-Team All-Big Ten
Claire Kieffer-Wright (indoor / high jump)
Haley Meier (indoor / mile)
Distance Medley Relay [Meier, Harrison, Borchers, Meier] (indoor)
Claire Borchers (outdoor / steeplechase)
Erin Finn (outdoor / 10,000 meters)
Jamie Morrissey (outdoor / 800 meters)
Second-Team All-Big Ten
Haley Meier (outdoor / 1,500 meters)
Big Ten Athlete of the Week
Jamie Morrissey (April 25)
Claire Kieffer-Wright (Feb. 14)
Erin Finn (Jan. 17)
Big Ten Distinguished Scholar
Rachel Barrett, Sr., Movement Science, Milford, Mich.
Claire Borchers, Sr., International Relations and French, Grand Haven, Mich.
Micaela Degenero, So., Computer Science, Granville, Ohio
Erin Finn, Gr., Epidemiology MPH, West Bloomfield, Mich.
Aaron Howell, Sr., International Studies and Sociology, Farmington Hills, Mich.
Sophie Linn, Gr., Information MSI, Adelaide, Australia
Meghan Marias, Sr., Linguistics and Psychology, Frankfort, Ill.
Haley Meier, Sr., Elementary Education, Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.
Maddy Trevisan, So., Mechanical Engineering, Farmington, Mich.
Academic All-Big Ten
Sydney Badger, Sr., Movement Science
Bailey Baker, Sr., Health and Fitness
Rachel Barrett, Sr., Movement Science
Emma Bauer, Jr., Biopsychology, Cognition & Neuroscience
Audrey Belf, Jr., Movement Science
Claire Borchers, Sr., International Studies / Spanish
Meg Darmofal, Jr., Movement Science
Micaela Degenero, So., LSA Undeclared
Avery Evenson, Sr., Management MM
Erin Finn, Sr., Epidemiology MPH
Jeryne Fish, Jr., Public Policy
Kathryn House, So., Sport Management
Aaron Howell, Sr., International Studies / Sociology
Courtney Jacobsen, So., LSA Undeclared
Torisa Johnson, So., LSA Undeclared
Kayla Keane, Jr., Movement Science
Ellie Leonard, Sr., Biochemistry
Sophie Linn, Sr., Information MSI
Meghan Marias, Sr., Linguistics / Psychology
Mary Kate McNamara, Jr., Economics
Haley Meier, Sr., Elementary Education
Hannah Meier, Sr., Health and Fitness
Jena Metwalli, So., LSA Undeclared
Katt Miner, So., LSA Undeclared
Briana Nelson, Jr., Psychology
Kate Owens, Jr., Movement Science
Faith Reynolds, Jr., Public Health
Christine Schultz, So., LSA Undeclared
Gina Sereno, Sr., Management MM
Taleen Shahrigian, Sr., Movement Science
Margaret Sliney, So., LSA Undeclared
Maddy Trevisan, So., Mechanical Engineering
Sarah Uhlian, Sr., Biopsychology, Cognition & Neuroscience
Lauren Vanvlierbergen, Jr., Business Administration
Sarah Zieve, Sr., Management MM
Players Mentioned
