Michigan women win 2nd straight
NCAA Great Lakes Regional Title
November 12th , 2005
By John Brabbs

The 3rd ranked University of Michigan women's cross country team scored 52 points to win their second straight regional title and fifth title overall. The Wolverines ran a tactical race to defeat Notre Dame by 16 points. Michigan's top five runners went 4, 6, 9, 14 and 19. Coach Mike McGuire said ".. neither Notre Dame or ourselves wanting to show our trump cards early." Michigan's seventh runner crossed the finish line before Notre Dame's fifth runner to clinch the victory for Michigan. When Coach McGuire was asked what he thought of the race, he said "I thought it was solid. We packed five in there pretty good." Wisconsin scored 142 to take 3rd followed by Butler in 4th, Michigan State was 5th, Western Michigan in 21st, Central Michigan in 24th and Oakland University in 25th. The Michigan women earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Division 1 Championship race November 21st in Terre Haute, IN. The Wolverines will take an undefeated record into the National meet.

Butler Senior Victoria Mitchell easily won the women's 6K in 20:37. Stephanie Madia finished 2nd in 21:00. Mitchell took the lead early in the race. Mitchell said "I felt good and the first hill didn't really feel like a hill." Even though Mitchell's coach wanted her to cruise until the 4K, Mitchell got to the top of the first hill and started to pull away from the field. She said "the first 3K was pretty easy. I felt it a bit on the last 2K." Mitchell didn't need to win, she just wanted to have a hard race before nationals. Mitchell will be looking to finish in the top few runners at the NCAA Championship race. This will be her first chance to run at the championship race, since she got injured at the 2004 Great Lakes regional race.

Alyson Kohlmeier led the Wolverines with a 4th place finish in a time of 21:07.0 followed by teammates Rebecca Walters in 6th and Erin Webster in 9th. In the last couple of races the Wolverines didn't get out real hard, so Alyson said "Our coach really wanted us to work on getting out hard in the first part of the race to avoid the pack." The plan was to run as a team and have a solid race to gain confidences for the NCAA Championship race on November 21st and defend their 2004 Regional title. Kohlmeiers when asked about her race plan said "I knew I wanted to be in the lead pack. Just try to relax. I knew the last 2K was going to be challenging." Notre Dame's Stephanie Madia pulled away from Alyson and Molly Huddle (Notre Dame) right before the 5K mark. Alyson pulled ahead of Huddle on the last little hill, then with about 600 meters to go Huddle moved ahead to claim third place in 21:04.

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