Michigan
NCAA Championships
NCAA Championships On Deck for Wolverine Women
3/12/2021 3:26:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
THIS WEEK
Moday, March 15 -- at NCAA Championships (Stillwater, Okla.), 11:50 a.m. CDT
TV: ESPNU | Live Results | Live Video
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- With only one meet under its belt but brimming with potential, the No. 8-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team will take on the country's best at the rescheduled 2020 NCAA Cross Country Championships in Stillwater, Okla., on Monday (March 15) in front of a national television audience on ESPNU.
Just 10 days after posting its perfect score at the Florida State Winter Cross Country Last Chance Invitational to clinch its 19th straight nationals bid, Michigan will line up at 11:50 a.m. CDT at the Oklahoma State Cross Country Course for a six-kilometer (3.73-mile) championship race.
Weather conditions are expected to be partly cloudy and mild at race time, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 50s with winds just over 10 mph.
Due to COVID-19 precautions, in-person spectators will not be permitted at the OSU Cross Country Course. Fans can follow along on ESPNU and with live results via Primetime Timing. Updates will also be available on the official social media channels of Michigan track and field.
The Wolverine women are aiming for a third top-four finish in the past five seasons and a fifth top-10 performance in the past six, with a lineup that mixes both veterans and newcomers.
Cross country All-American Ericka VanderLende -- who is also racing the 5,000-meter final at the NCAA Indoor Championships on Friday night (March 12) -- will look to build on her 25th-place individual finish from a year ago as the Wolverines' low stick runner.
Behind her will be a group of runners who packed up well at Florida State and provide significant depth for Michigan.
Returning from Michigan's 13th-place squad in 2019 are Kathryn House and Alice Hill, both of whom will be seeking improvement on off-days at the 2019 meet that resulted in 173rd- and 230th-place finishes, respectively, in the 252-woman field.
Rather, they will look to harness the form that in the interim saw House take fourth in the 2021 Big Ten Indoor Championships 3,000-meter final and Hill take sixth in the Big Ten mile and qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships for the third-straight year as a member of the distance medley relay.
Like VanderLende, Hill will be coming off a track nationals performance on Friday in the relay, as may be Katelynne Hart and/or Jena Metwalli. Both women are in the relay pool along with Hill. Hart ran the anchor leg of Michigan's runner-up effort at the Big Ten Indoor Championships, while Metwalli separately finished seventh in the mile in career-best fashion.
Also entering Monday's championships as Big Ten scorers on the track are sixth-place 5,000-meter finisher Raquel Powers and seventh-place 3,000-meter finisher Samantha Tran.
Rounding out the lineup of available runners are Kayla Windemuller and Samantha Saenz, who clocked personal bests in their respective 3,000- and 5,000-meter races at Big Ten Indoors.
In their lone cross country race at Florida State last Friday (March 5), VanderLende showed her front-running potential in a runaway 40-second victory, while the group of house, Metwalli, Hart, Hill, Windemuller, Tran, Saenz and Powers were all separated by less than 30 seconds. Metwalli through Windemuller were all within 11 seconds of one another.
How the Championships Work
A total of 31 schools qualified to compete at the NCAA Championships as full teams. Teams are allowed seven runners, with the top-five finishers for each school constituting the scoring lineup. Teams with fewer than five finishers will not be counted in the final team standings.
Points are awarded to each runner based on their order of finish. Only runners who are members of one of the 31 teams are eligible to score. An additional 38 runners qualified as individuals; they will not be assigned points for their finishes.
Once all the runners have finished the race, the team with the lowest score will be crowned the team champion.
While runners Nos. 6 and 7 for each team do not technically contribute to their own teams' scores, they serve the purpose of adding an additional point to all the runners who finish behind them.
Though not a facet of the team scoring, the top-40 finishers will earn All-America honors from the USTFCCCA.
Players Mentioned
