Wolverine Women Earn USTFCCCA All-Academic Awards
4/1/2021 2:57:00 PM | Women's Cross Country, Academic Success Program
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- For the second season in a row, a program-best five members of the University of Michigan women's cross country team earned U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division I All-Academic honors, the association announced Thursday (April 1). The Wolverine women also were honored as a team for the 10th consecutive year.
Top-100 NCAA Cross Country Championships finishers Ericka VanderLende and Samantha Tran led the way for the group that also included Katelynne Hart, Alice Hill and Kayla Windemuller. All but VanderLende are first-time honorees, who has now earned the award in back-to-back seasons to kick off her collegiate career.
VanderLende, a sophomore studying applied exercise science, was Michigan's top finisher at nationals with a 65th-place showing. She also won the Florida State Winter Cross Country Last Chance Invitational during the regular season.
A redshirted first-year competitor studying movement science who was recently named this year's Big Ten Freshman of the Year, Tran placed 90th at the national meet.
Windemuller, a sophomore applied exercise science major, and Hill, a senior double-major in neuroscience and ecology, evolution and biodiversity, were 152nd and 189th at nationals, respectively. Hart, a first-year competitor who has not yet declared a major, did not finish the race.
Each woman earned this distinction by virtue of carrying a cumulative grade point average greater than 3.25 and qualifying for the NCAA meet last month. They were among 269 female student-athletes from NCAA Division I institutions across the country recognized with this award.
To qualify as a USTFCCCA All-Academic Cross Country Team, the team must have had a cumulative team grade-point average of 3.00 -- a threshold head coach Mike McGuire's teams have met in each of the past 10 seasons.
• USTFCCCA Release
Players Mentioned
