Central Michigan University Athletics
Chippewas Head to Spartan Invitational on Friday
9/15/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Sept. 15, 2005
MOUNT PLEASANT -- When the Central Michigan University women's cross country team competes at the Spartan Invitational this Friday, Sept. 16, head coach Karen Lutzke will be looking for some marked improvement from her young squad.
The Chippewas will be competing in a 6K race this weekend hosted by Michigan State at the Forest Akers Golf Course. The women run at 2 p.m., and the men at 2:35 p.m.
Other schools scheduled to compete are host Michigan State, Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Northwood, Saginaw Valley, Hillsdale, Lake Superior State, Spring Arbor, Lansing Community College and Schoolcraft College. It will be a non-scoring affair.
"We're expecting improvement after our good start to the season at the Jeff Drenth meet," Lutzke said. "We've had two good weeks of training and now we just have to continue doing everything in a competition setting.
"We got our feet wet with a lot of our young runners two weeks ago and now we'll get a better idea of where we are at as a team and also individually with this weekend's meet. Our goal is to continue to close that gap among our top five."
The Chippewas opened the season on Sept. 2 by hosting the Jeff Drenth Memorial and two of CMU's top three finishers were freshmen.
Jackie Rivard (Bad Axe, Mich./Fr.) was CMU's top finisher with a fifth-place finish and a time of 18:40. Senior Teresa Bongiovanni (Washington, Mich.) was seventh in 19:04 and Kelly McClure (Iron Mountain, Mich./Fr.) finished eighth in 19:09. Also sneaking into the top 10 was Sara Prout (Shepherd, Mich./So.) in 10th at 19:21.
The Drenth meet was a non-scoring affair featuring runners from Michigan State, Michigan, Ferris State and Lake Superior State.
Lutzke isn't concerned with some true freshmen at the front of the pack this season.
"I don't consider them newcomers anymore," she said. "They have a race under their belts and are pushing our competition level in workouts. That's good for everyone involved because we are getting better as a team."
After this week, the Chippewas will compete again next Friday, Sept. 23, at Western Michigan.
"Ideally you'd like to run every other week but that just doesn't work out with us for the schedule," Lutzke said. "We definitely won't compete more than two straight weeks when we set up the season. Our whole year is just a build up to the MAC meet. Remaining fresh and healthy throughout the year is what we want."
