Central Michigan University Athletics
Women's Cross Country Prepares For Spartan Invite
9/10/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Sept. 10, 2002
The Team - The Central Michigan University women's cross country team will take a week off before heading into the non-scoring Spartan Ivite in East Lansing on Sept. 20.
Not only will the Chippewas get another look at 12th-ranked Michigan State, they will have a chance to square off with preseason MAC favorite, Toledo.
The meet is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m.
A New Week - "The Spartan Invite will give us a chance to see where we're at," assistant coach Karen Lutzke said. "Things change every week, and every course is different. We can't look at last week and say where we are at. MSU has a fast course, and it's a very competitive meet. That should let us see how we're doing.
"We'll be focusing on Toledo and Michigan State. It's an unscored meet, but still a good opportunity to see where those teams are at. We're excited. It should be a fun meet."
A Week "Off" - "Our focus in the off-week is training," said head coach Kathleen Raske. "We plan to develop our training and get in some hard workouts."
"We plan to train hard and train smart," Lutzke said. "With a meet coming up next week, we won't overdo things. We'll just try to maintain our focus, stick to our goals, and keep plugging away."
Miami Invite Recap - The Central Michigan University women's cross country team finished second at the Miami Invite in Oxford, Ohio, on Sept. 7.
CMU totaled 45 points in the six-team event, with host Miami capturing first place with 22 points.
Junior Kristen Podein (Rockford) made the most of her season debut, crossing the line in 18:28.75 to take fourth place. Cami Moll (Zeeland/Jr.) snagged fifth with a time of 18:30.60.
Ball State (71 points) finished third in the team scores, with Cincinnati (104 points), Northern Illinois (131 points) and Northern Kentucky (147 points) rounding out the rest of the field.
On Stride - "We feel that we ran well at Miami," Raske said. "We had a great pack. Our one through five split was seven seconds, and that's the name of the game. It was a good race and a good weekend."
"We were disappointed that we lost to Miami, but excited about how we ran as a team," Lutzke said. "It's been a number of years since our top five has been that close together, and that's what we need. A lot of runners stepped it up.
"We have not peaked yet, so to run this well now is exciting. We have eight weeks until the MAC meet, and we're just going to get better and better."
Chippewa Notebook - Kristen Podein's 18:28.75 was a personal best by over 30 seconds (19:10). It was also the first time she was the top Chippewa to cross the finish line ... Freshman Teresa Bongiovanni finished as one of the Chippewas top 5 finishers for the second consecutive week ... Junior Karen LeRoy's 18:45 was only seven seconds away from a personal best.
