Women's Cross Country Takes Third at Great Lakes Regional

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- No. 10 Michigan State women's cross country ran to a third-place finish at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional, while the men came in sixth place at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course Friday.

Paced by a fifth-place overall finish from redshirt-junior Annie Fuller (20:41), the Spartan women tallied 89 points. Fuller turned in a strong final 1,000-meters, passing eight runners before crossing the line with her best finish since returning from injury this season. The Green and White finished seven points behind runner-up No. 11 Wisconsin. No. 7 Michigan took home the Regional title with a score of 46 points.

"I thought our women moved up well, but Annie really moved up well," Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Walt Drenth said. "She followed a little different race plan in terms of making adjustments, and she did a really good job of making those adjustments. That's for sure."

Michigan and Wisconsin earned the two automatic-qualification team spots for next week's NCAA Cross Country National Championships in Madison, Wisconsin. Fuller has auto-qualified as an individual for nationals after being a top-four finisher not on a qualifying team. The Spartan women will find out if they are selected as an at-large team to nationals Saturday, Nov. 10.

Sophomore Maggie Farrell (20:51) and redshirt-senior Erin McDonald (20:52) were the next MSU runners across the line, coming in 12th and 13th place, respectively. Redshirt-junior Jeralyn Poe (20:59) joined Fuller, Farrell and McDonald on the All-Region team after finishing in 22nd place. Sophomore India Johnson rounded out the scoring, coming in 37th place at 21:18.

"I felt like our front four ran really well, and they had a pretty good sense of confidence," Drenth said. "I'd like to see more confidence from our five, six and seven runners heading into next week. I think we had the ability to put five or six people in the top 25 today."

The Spartans finished ahead of two ranked teams as No. 18 Notre Dame finished fourth and No. 14 Indiana took home fifth place.

The men's team suffered from a couple cases of bad luck on a day of wet, muddy footing. Redshirt-senior Justine Kiprotich had his shoe partially kicked off at about 2,500-meters and had to stop to put it back on. Later on, redshirt-junior Matthew Thomas fell at 7,500 meters as the race started to really get going.

Both Spartans kept going as Kiprotich finished the 10,000-meter course in 31:35 for 21st place. He was followed closely by Thomas, who crossed the line right after in 22nd place, with a time of 31:37. Kiprotich and Thomas were both named to the All-Region team after placing in the top 25.

"I thought Justine did a really nice job of trying to get back in the run after that," Drenth said. "He made it work, and I thought it was a really courageous effort. Matt was right with the front group when he fell, and still was able to make All-Region. I've seen great growth from him through this entire year."

No. 3 Wisconsin won the men's title with 49 points and No. 10 Notre Dame captured the other auto-qualifier spot to Nationals, totaling 91 points as the runner-up. No. 27 Michigan finished third with 109 points, No. 15 Purdue came in fourth (121) and No. 23 Indiana took fifth (124). The Spartans followed with 173 points.

Sophomore Joe Riordan was the third Spartan to finish, posting a time of 31:49 in what was the first time this season the men have ran the 10k distance. Redshirt-sophomore Brayden Law (32:06) came in 46th place and redshirt-senior Daniel Sims (32:12) was 53rd to complete the scoring for MSU.

The men will also wait until Saturday for news of an at-large selection to nationals. Check for updates on msuspartans.com after selections have been made.

Women's Cross Country Takes Third at Great Lakes Regional

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Players Mentioned

Maggie Farrell

Annie Fuller

India Johnson

Justine Kiprotich

Brayden Law

Erin McDonald

Jeralyn Poe

Joe Riordan

Matthew Thomas