One Final Opportunity
November 18, 2009 10:58 AM | Cross Country
November 18, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There have been times this year when Sean Cleary has felt like his seventh-ranked West Virginia University cross country team has been stuck in the mud.
 |
|
| Clara is one of three seniors competing at nationals next Monday in Terre Haute, Ind.
Tad Davis photo |
The Mountaineers, fourth at last year's national championships and one of five preseason favorites to win it all this year, have had some good performances and some not-so-good performances. Poor running conditions and illnesses have been partly to blame.
"We've just been smashed the last three meets," Cleary admitted. "We've been running in tons of mud and inches of rain and sloppy, wet grass."
More so than the poor conditions, illnesses have derailed some of West Virginia's preseason goals. The Mountaineers wanted to reclaim the Big East title from Villanova and they wanted to finish in the top two at regionals. Neither of those happened.
"There have been a few moments this year, technically, when you just wish you had a button to hit to reset but you can't," said Cleary.
The three-time regional coach of the year was not happy with the way his team competed at the Big East Championships in Kenosha, Wis., back on Oct. 31. It was probably the only time during the last four years that Cleary can ever recall his runners leaving something out on the course.
"I just felt like on that day we probably were not on par with Villanova and I felt like our perfect race would have been a lot closer to them," he said. "As we headed into the final stages of the season I just wanted them to know how I felt that if we were going to achieve what we wanted to over the next few weeks then we really needed to bring a different level of confidence to the early stages of the race."
Basically, Cleary's message to them was run your race, not the race your opponents are running.
"As we left the region meet last weekend with Villanova and Princeton I felt like our girls got out and ran that race very hard," he said. "They got into the race and they ran from the front. The result was a third-place finish, but what excited me most was they weren't running anybody else's race that day."
On the strength of their performances this year and their high national ranking, West Virginia was one of 13 teams selected to receive an at-large bid into the 2009 NCAA championships that will take place on Monday, Nov. 23, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind.
It is the sixth time West Virginia has qualified for nationals and the fourth time under Cleary. In a sense the at-large bid was a reset for the Mountaineers, and Cleary believes the team is capable of another top-level finish at nationals this year.
"This program has been flawless," he said. "They didn't have a bad day or an off day until a few weeks ago. This is a veteran group and they've experienced a lot of success. I just really believe they are going to go out there and take advantage of exactly where they are and return home with a performance reflective of who they are."
Cleary said his team will take a different racing philosophy to Indiana next Monday.
"Our philosophy last weekend was less about pack running and more about getting yourself in the race and actually running your best individual race," he said. "That philosophy goes back to a few years ago and it worked then, and that's what we plan on doing at nationals.
"They each have different strengths and weaknesses – some like to come out hard and others like to come from behind," he added. "We're going to put seven girls on the line and we're going to run seven different races wanting that outcome to be the maximizing of our potential."
Three of the most prolific distance runners in school history will be making their final cross country appearances in Marie-Louise Asselin, Keri Bland and Clara Grandt.
Asselin and Bland can become the first three-time cross country All-Americans in school history, while Grandt is looking to earn her first All-America citation this year. Grandt just missed the cutoff for All-America last year.
"I think losing the three of them – plus Karly Hamric who was an All-American in track – they are a big part of our cross country program," Cleary said.
The coach is certainly expecting big performances from his two top guns Asselin and Bland on Monday.
"My talk with them was very simple: we're going to go out to Indiana and we're going to come back as three-time All-Americans," Cleary explained. "And then we're going to devise the best possible plan for them for the next two years because we've got them for indoor and outdoor track to help put them into a position to be national champions. That's just a firm belief of mine."
And while Cleary will certainly keep an eye on his fabulous senior class, he will also be paying close attention to his underclassmen. There are a couple of runners in this group that have the potential to be West Virginia's next All-Americans.
"I think the chemistry of the team will be a little different next year," he said. "Somebody will step up and become the new leaders. We ran a race earlier this year at Lehigh and we ran without Clara, Keri and Marie and we won that meet with next year's team, and that is pretty satisfying to me."
The rest of the runners toeing the line at the start of the race on Monday will be juniors Kaylyn Christopher and Kate Harrison, sophomore Ahna Lewis, and freshman Sarah Brault.
"They need to set the tone for next year with the national meet this year," Cleary said. "If that group can continue to improve for the next 12 months with the style and the way I set up a schedule, we're going to be coming through the backdoor (at nationals) next year I hope."
If that happens, it will break a trend that has taken place over the last decade that has seen the distance program peak in four-year cycles.
"With a separate generation of runners we've sort of had this young-gun group that has come in and plugged away and in their final year they've reached their goal and gone to nationals and then we've started over," Cleary said. "It's happened with three different cycles. This is the first time I can say that we're losing four of our nine, but I will be disappointed a year from now if we're not back at nationals."
Monday's national championship race will air live on Versus. The women will get underway at 12:58 p.m. following the men's race at 12:08.
Players Mentioned
