The Home Stretch
October 09, 2009 10:58 AM | Cross Country
October 9, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia cross country coach Sean Cleary said he will have his full roster available for the first time this season when the Mountaineers race at the Penn State National Open next Friday.
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| West Virginia's top runners such as Keri Bland will compete for the first time this season next Friday at Penn State.
Big East Conference photo |
The Mountaineers recently garnered their highest national ranking ever, soaring up to the No. 3 spot in the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll behind defending champion Washington and BIG EAST rival Villanova. The scary part is West Virginia is ranked third without its top two runners Marie-Louise Asselin and Keri Bland having run a race yet this season.
No. 3 runner Clara Grandt has also ran just one of the team's three events this season, posting a first-place finish at the Midwest Open on Sept. 19. When Louise-Asselin and Bland hit the course, look out.
"We opened up the nucleus of our program at Lehigh – Kaylyn Christopher, Kate Harrison, Jessica O'Connell and Sarah-Anne Brault. We saved Ahna Lewis because she was the first girl in the program who came down with the flu this fall," Cleary said.
"I would say a couple of things have come out of all this. Watching our group race on the weekend, that is our team next season," Cleary added. "We're still in good hands. That's exciting to know that we've been able to race with some of the premier teams in the country. Our girls know where they fall in the scheme of things, but it gives us a lot of comfort knowing that we have good depth.
"A lot of teams have great 1s, or 1s, 2s and 3s, but through the 4, 5, 6 and 7 spots, my feeling is that we're fortunate that those girls are hopefully future All-Americans for us. Sometimes they are in the shadows, but they are tremendous kids themselves. From top to bottom I've been pretty pleased with things so far."
With the Penn State National Invitational coming next weekend, Cleary says that he will play his full hand and have the entire team run, including WVU's big three. In last year's invite, WVU stunned the entire field when it finished in first place over the likes of Penn State, Wake Forest, Duke and Tennessee, all without Asselin.
But Cleary knows that every team will be gunning for WVU this year, and the three-time Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year is excited to have his full team back. The Mountaineers recently won the Paul Short Invitational and the Midwest Open, while taking second at Maryland-Eastern Shore.
Regardless of the outcome, Cleary believes that putting his 4-7 runners in pressure spots where they are charged with carrying the team without the presence of the three front-runners is critical for their psyche.
"I think it's very important," Cleary said of the role of his 4-7 runners. "We have a very large roster, about 27 or 28 girls. There's not a young woman on that team that didn't come from individual great success or team success. All the local girls from Preston to Morgantown, they are all part of state championship teams. Some of them were much further up on that pecking order, so they were vital in that coaches were looking at them everyday to perform.
"Coming to a program where they've had to pay their dues for a while, it's a different role. It's just college athletics, and all sports are like that. In this sport you're so easily identified because, unlike a basketball player or soccer player or backup quarterback who is not getting on the field, our kids get to run."
WVU's success in its first three events is a wonderful sign for a program looking to expand on last season's program-best fourth place finish at NCAA Nationals. Louise-Asselin, Bland and Grandt are all in their final seasons, and the talented runners who have led the Mountaineers this season are also the faces of the future, aside from redshirt senior Karly Hamric, who is also in her final season.
"Kaylyn Christopher, Kate Harrison, Karly Hamric, Maria Dalzot, Jessica O'Connell, Sarah Anne-Brault – those seven, they're all in their minds big-time runners. They know that at any given moment they're going to have a chance to step up and I would probably say that each one of them has saved us on an occasion or two. They know that next year and the following year, we don't want to fall off the face of the earth with this program. They're absolutely essential to the future. Our pack is going to absolutely determine our success, and they know that."
Not running at full strength until late in the regular season is a commonality under Cleary, as well as many other coaches throughout the country. Cleary is a firm believer in making sure his top runners are well rested and prepared for the big meets at the end of the year.
"In my opinion, working with 18-22-year-old women and all the struggles they go through – academics and college life and being young women away from home – it can be very difficult to maneuver them through four or five years in their career," Cleary said. "Asking them to begin on Aug. 29 or Sept. 1 and go all the way through July, year after year, is difficult … the missed time, the classes; I know there are a lot of sports that have to miss a lot of class, but for female distance runners who are high-achieving, academic kids, it is brutal.
"In a nutshell, for those kids competing deep into the summer, I'm expecting them to be at the peak of their lives next year at nationals in Eugene, Ore. In order to satisfy that need and the winter needs and the indoor season, BIG EAST championships and nationals, I feel like the later the start, the better. Some of these girls don't need practice in racing, so when some of them arrive off of hard training and sporadic racing, I try to do the right things."
One of his biggest teaching aspects is making sure each of his runners serves her role in some capacity. This thought process is not limited to just athletics, but letting each runner benefit themselves away from the course and putting them on a straight path to success.
"It's been the biggest objective of my staff (Jennifer Davis and Shelly Gallimore) and I to make sure that each of our runners have a place," Cleary added. "If they don't have a place then they shouldn't be with us, meaning that they should be fantastic big sisters or great students or awesome to be around or being the future of our program. You've got to have a reason to be out there for us, and it's our objective as a coaching staff to make sure they know what that is."
His inspiring tactics have elevated the West Virginia distance program into one of the country's elite. The recognition is humbling for the program, but Cleary sometimes looks at it as a double-edged sword.
"I think if you ask that question to any coach, we're trained to say that it's wonderful, it's great, but it's not really meaningful," Cleary said when asked what the rankings mean to him. "The reality is it's very flattering, and our team is pumped by it.
"That said being an underdog is also enjoyable for a coach, knowing that you have what is required to upset some people," he said. "I'll be honest with you; we haven't really sat down as a group and had a talk about winning nationals. We haven't sat down and talked about winning the BIG EAST Championships. I sent them all an email last January and let them know everything that was on my mind. In this sport, I think because we are asking five years and 10 months out of the year, they really don't get an offseason. I think based on that my objective is not to get them too high and not to get them too low."
Villanova, which owns the most women's cross country championships with seven, has developed a rivalry with WVU over the last two seasons. Last year, WVU was poised to take the conference crown until the Wildcats emerged victorious. However, the Mountaineers came back by winning the Mid-Atlantic Regionals, making this year's postseason even more competitive.
"It's exciting," Cleary said of the rivalry. "I'll be honest; a year ago today I thought we had the BIG EAST covered. I won't say we looked past it or trained through it - we didn't. We still ran a very good race and lost. I think what's going to happen this year is that our runners, from two weeks out, will be more alert to win that title back."
With Cleary in charge, the cross country program continues to reach unprecedented levels. With a tremendous squad that is motivated to top last year's record-breaking season, WVU is poised to take on all challengers as it strives for its first NCAA Championship.
