Tran Named Big Ten Cross Country Freshman of the Year
3/18/2021 3:00:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
ROSEMONT, Ill. -- For the third consecutive season, the University of Michigan women's cross country team is home to the Big Ten Freshman of the Year winner as Samantha Tran was bestowed the honor in a vote of the conference's coaches, the Big Ten announced Thursday (March 18).
A sophomore in the classroom who redshirted the 2019-20 academic year, Tran joins teammates Ericka VanderLende (2019) and Anne Forsyth (2018) as recent winners of the award and is the sixth Wolverine since 2011 to be named Freshman of the Year.
She earned the distinction on the strength of her debut NCAA Cross Country Championships performance, where she placed 90th overall and was among only two first-year finishers from Big Ten rosters. She was the sixth-highest-finishing first-year competitor in the entire field.
Tran's performance under pressure at nationals demonstrated poise beyond her experience. After coming through the one-kilometer split in the six-kilometer race north of 200th place, she steadily worked her way through the field from there. At the four-kilometer split she broke into the top 150, and had moved up to 122nd with just 1,000 meters to go.
She performed at an All-American level in that final kilometer, climbing 32 spots to 90th -- the 10th-biggest jump in the entire field over the last kilometer -- with a 3:40.0 split that was 37th fastest of all the finishers.
Tran came through as Michigan's No. 3 runner as the Wolverine women went on to finish 17th for its 10th straight top-20 finish at the national meet.
Tran will now focus on the outdoor track and field campaign, which will begin for her as early as March 26-27 for the first of four competitions at Indiana.
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