FTT...For The Team

For those of you who have been waiting for the latest post I apologize for the tardiness...especially after such a great performance.  However, I had to return to Iowa to be with my family as we remembered by 92 year old grandmother who passed away last week.  She lived a great life and was at the top of the list when it came to supporting our entire family and all of our different endeavors.  She came to everyone of my high school track and xc meets.  Her imprint on all of us will continue to be alive and well.

Before returning home my team had business to attend to in the form of the PAC-12 Conference Championships.  A year ago we were 8th, but several girls were tentative and unsure of what to expect.  This year we had a great race plan and everyone worked extremely hard to execute it.  UCLA hosted the meet on a course full of turns and little rhythm buster ups and downs.  It was also slightly warmer than expected and the area was under a wind advisory...so not ideal running conditions.  However, our group was determined to deliver their best race of the year and that is exactly what they did.  We scratched and clawed for every position.  Going into the final 1K I would guess we were in ninth place trailing Cal and ASU by a few points each.  However, our plan was to be more conservative in the first half of the race due to the course layout and conditions.  That plan payed off as we gained 12-15 positions in that final K (including at least six by my count in the final 300m) that secured a 7th place finish.

~The teams that place ahead of us were ranked 3-4-5-6-21-24 in the country.
~We were only 28 points behind #24 UCLA.
~We return six of our top seven and 10 of our top 12 runners next year.

Senior Amanda Mergaert continues to close the gap on some of the top women in the country as she was with the lead group at about 2K to go.  She finished 6th and became our first ever First Team All PAC-12 runner. Soph Susannah Hurst moved up 17 places from a year ago to finish 28th. Newcomer Giselle Slotboom ran one of the gutsiest races any of us have ever witnessed.  She was clipped from behind early in the race causing the back of her shoe to become lodged under her heel.  With the shoe ready to fall off she grabbed it mid stride and ran with one shoe for the remaining 5K of the race.  She placed 38th, including out sprinting two competitors in the final 300m.  There were several spots on the course between fairways where the ground was covered with dirt, rocks, tree roots, and branches.  Needless to say....that was a terrific, gutsy effort from a determined young gal.  Frosh Andrea Chavez and Soph Nikki Rietz closed out the scoring for us and secured the final points we needed to place seventh.  Kate Stringfellow and Lauren Mills were right behind as our 6-7 runners.  Senior Megan Combe ran the final xc race of her career as our eighth runner.  

I'm really proud of the way our team approached this meet.  They answered the bell and were all accountable to each other and our tradition of meeting or exceeding expectations when it counted the most.  We will continue to work hard and fine tune our efforts as we prepare for the NCAA Regional Championships in 11 days at Colorado State.