Northwestern University Athletics
Wildcats Gear Up For Griak
9/26/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country & Track
Sept. 26, 2003
EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern's women's cross country team may have finished fourth out of four Big Ten teams last week at Michigan State, but Wildcats head coach Amy Tush was more than pleased with her team's effort.
In fact - and the results would bear her out - she would even go so far to say the 2003 team is running better than last year's squad, which made history with NU's first NCAA bid since 1985.
Diana Hossfeld, NU's top runner last Friday, was three seconds ahead of her time at last year's NCAA meet and 11 seconds shy of a personal best. Emily Blakeslee matched her NCAA time and was a second shy of her PR. Nora Colligan ran a PR.
Those were just the Wildcats' first three runners, but you get the picture. The list goes on and on.
It is pretty heady stuff for a meet in mid-September.
"I was really excited about how we ran as a team," said Tush. "However, there is still room for improvement; we were about 50 seconds from our first runner to our fifth, and we need to bring that down to about 25-30 seconds.
"We are more confident, I think, than we were a year ago at this point. But a meet like this weekend will be much more indicative of where we are at this stage."
Indeed, it will be cast of hundreds - or at least seem that way - when Northwestern competes in the Roy Griak Invitational Saturday in Minneapolis. Several conference and regional rivals will be on hand, and the lineup is dotted with several national powers.
"It will be an interesting meet," said Tush. "We could be in the Top 15 and yet still be among the national Top 30; such is the caliber of this meet."
One thing that Tush points to in NU's favor is the distance of Saturday's race.
"Most teams have not competed yet at 6K this fall," she said. "I think we'll be a little stronger at the end, having just done it last weekend. With Big Tens and of course the regional and national events at that distance, the more experience you have running it the better."
"I am excited for this weekend. I think we will get a chance to see where we are in the Big Ten and in the region."
NU Runners At the Griak
Emily Blakeslee
Nora Colligan
Kalysta Harmon
Diana Hossfeld
Nicole Kalogeropoulos
Catie LaBracke
Lindsay McAlister
Lesley Meade
Mallory O'Niel
Katie Romaine
Casey Shea
