Eastern Michigan Athletics
Saturday, October 17
Louisville, Ky.
10:15 a.m.
Eastern Michigan University
at
Pre-National Invitational
Photo by: Steve King/KingStudios
Eagles Prepare for Showdown with Slew of Talented Teams
10/12/2015 3:06:00 PM | Women's XC
The Green and White are ready to travel to Louisville and take on a talented and competitive field
YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) — Fresh off a brief break from competition, the Eastern Michigan University women's cross country team is set to travel to Louisville, Ky. for the Pre-National Invitational Saturday, Oct. 17. As Louisville will play host to the 2015 NCAA Championships in November, this event will serve as a practice run for the Green and White.
Previously, the Eagles had a solid showing at the 2015 Joe Piane Notre Dame invitational, as nearly every Eagle improved their 5,000-meter time. Senior Sofie Gallein (Gits, Belgium - Univ. of Leuven) led the way with a time of 17:06.8, placing her 25th in the talented field of runners. Gallein's time was nearly 40 seconds faster than her previous season-best in the 5,000-meter. Only ten seconds behind her was sophomore Jordann McDermitt (Davison, Mich. - Davison), who finished in 17:16.7 and placed 36th. Junior Alsu Bogdanova (Kazan, Russia - Lyceum #83) continued her trend of finishing amongst the top Eagles, as she posted a 71st place finish in 17:38.6. Bogdanova also shaved off some time from her top 5K this season, running 27 seconds faster than the previous week.
Head Coach Sue Parks hopes to continue seeing improvement on her squad, as the Mid-American Conference Championship continues to grow closer. When describing the upcoming race, she stated "This is an elite field and we're excited to be competing against some of the top teams in the nation. It will be a large race with 41 teams and we know that we'll have to race aggressively in order to be successful. We need to continue to close the gap from our first to fifth runner and we faltered in that area a little bit at Notre Dame. But we are a lot more healthy than we were at both Virginia and Notre Dame and training has been going great so we're anxious to put together a total team performance in Louisville. This will be a big test but we feel that we are up to the challenge. We hope to have a strong performance two weeks out from the MAC meet."
The Women's Red race is set to begin at 10:15 a.m. in E.P. 'Tom' Sawyer State Park. The talented field of teams at the event includes No. 2 Colorado, No. 4 Oregon, No. 5 Michigan, No. 7 Georgetown, No. 9 Stanford, No. 26 Villanova, No. 27 Texas, and No. 29 Cornell. For more information on the event, please click here.
Previously, the Eagles had a solid showing at the 2015 Joe Piane Notre Dame invitational, as nearly every Eagle improved their 5,000-meter time. Senior Sofie Gallein (Gits, Belgium - Univ. of Leuven) led the way with a time of 17:06.8, placing her 25th in the talented field of runners. Gallein's time was nearly 40 seconds faster than her previous season-best in the 5,000-meter. Only ten seconds behind her was sophomore Jordann McDermitt (Davison, Mich. - Davison), who finished in 17:16.7 and placed 36th. Junior Alsu Bogdanova (Kazan, Russia - Lyceum #83) continued her trend of finishing amongst the top Eagles, as she posted a 71st place finish in 17:38.6. Bogdanova also shaved off some time from her top 5K this season, running 27 seconds faster than the previous week.
Head Coach Sue Parks hopes to continue seeing improvement on her squad, as the Mid-American Conference Championship continues to grow closer. When describing the upcoming race, she stated "This is an elite field and we're excited to be competing against some of the top teams in the nation. It will be a large race with 41 teams and we know that we'll have to race aggressively in order to be successful. We need to continue to close the gap from our first to fifth runner and we faltered in that area a little bit at Notre Dame. But we are a lot more healthy than we were at both Virginia and Notre Dame and training has been going great so we're anxious to put together a total team performance in Louisville. This will be a big test but we feel that we are up to the challenge. We hope to have a strong performance two weeks out from the MAC meet."
The Women's Red race is set to begin at 10:15 a.m. in E.P. 'Tom' Sawyer State Park. The talented field of teams at the event includes No. 2 Colorado, No. 4 Oregon, No. 5 Michigan, No. 7 Georgetown, No. 9 Stanford, No. 26 Villanova, No. 27 Texas, and No. 29 Cornell. For more information on the event, please click here.
Players Mentioned
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