Michigan
Greater Louisville Classic
Wolverines to Return to Action at Greater Louisville Classic
9/30/2021 2:06:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
THIS WEEK
Saturday, Oct. 2 -- at Greater Louisville Classic (Louisville, Ky.), 10:15 a.m.
Live Results | Live Video
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The national No. 8-ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team returns to action this Saturday morning (Oct. 2) at the Greater Louisville Classic after a three-week training period.
Among the 40 teams the Wolverines will square off with on the five-kilometer (3.11-mile) course on the grounds of the E.P. "Tom Sawyer" State Park are conference rival No. 26 Wisconsin and national vote-receiving West Virginia.
The race, which will be Michigan's first at Louisville since winning the 2018 edition of this meet, begins at 10:15 a.m.
Expected to line up for the Wolverines are cross country All-American Ericka VanderLende; track All-Americans Katelynne Hart, Alice Hill, Lucy Petee and Aurora Rynda; former Big Ten Cross Country Freshmen of the Year Anne Forsyth and Samantha Tran; Kayla Windemuller; Samantha Saenz; Julia Vanitvelt; Gabby Swider; and Eva Jansohn.
Live video of the race will be carried on FloTrack's subscription streaming service. Fans can follow the race as it happens via live results from Flash Results. Updates also will be posted to the official social media channels of the program.
Things to Know
• Led by longtime women's head cross country coach Mike McGuire, the U-M women will enter the weekend ranked No. 1 in the deep Great Lakes Regional rankings and No. 8 in the National Coaches' Poll announced earlier this week by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
• The Wolverines have claimed seven of the last nine regional titles and are in the midst of the third-longest active NCAA Championships qualifying streak in the nation at 19 years running.
• This marks the 19th consecutive year Michigan has earned a top-30 national rank to start the season. Of those 19 years, Michigan has gone on to outperform their preseason rank at the NCAA Championships 10 times.
• Michigan was the decisive winner at this meet when it last raced here in 2018 as the No.10-ranked team in the country. The Wolverines scored 46 points with six runners in the top 20, well ahead of second-place Eastern Kentucky with 120 points. Only Hill, who was the team's No. 8 runner in 29th place, returns from that competition.
• Louisville also was the site of Michigan's ninth-place squad at the 2017 NCAA Championships the fall before. No scoring competitors from that national championships team remain on the roster, though Hill and Vanitvelt were both on the team at that point as first-year collegians.
• When last the Wolverines competed in 2021, they finished third in a tight three-way team race at the Penn State Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational on Sept. 10. Led by top-10 finishes from Ericka VanderLende, Kayla Windemuller and Katelynn Hart, Michigan scored 54 points. They narrowly lost out to Georgetown with 48 points and Minnesota with 51.
• Michigan has found a strong 1-2-3 punch so far this season between VanderLende, Windemuller and Hart. That trio came through at Penn State in fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively, as the Wolverines were the first squad with three finishers across the line.
• The Wolverines have plenty of proven talent behind them, including reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year Samantha Tran, a resurgent Anne Forsyth, who is competing at a high level for the first time since her revelation of a debut campaign in 2018, and NCAA Championships steeplechase qualifier Alice Hill.
• Michigan also will be looking for a breakthrough campaign from Samantha Saenz, who was poised for a big season in 2020 before the pandemic pushed cross country to the spring. She was Michigan's No. 5 runner at Penn State in 19th place.
Players Mentioned
