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2007
SEASON OUTLOOK
USF head coach Drew Ludtke is happy to have some familiar faces on his 2007 women’s cross country team. At least some faces that he has known for a year.
The 2006 team helped resuscitate a program that did not compete in 2005 and had just a handful of runners – not enough to post a team score – in 2004.
Ludtke, who was hired in the summer of 2005 to rebuild the women’s track and cross country programs, brought in a dozen runners one year ago who were all new to the program. Only one was not a freshman. The team ran well, considering its youth, and actually sent two freshmen to the NAIA Championship meet in Louisville, Ky.
“I was pleased with the steps we took a year ago and am confident that we will show a great deal of improvement this fall,” says Ludtke, who came to USF after successfully retooling the track and cross country programs at NCAA Division II Lake Superior State in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, his boyhood home.
The freshman class of 2006 also included athletes who compete on the USF track team and were primarily using the cross country season for training purposes. Seven runners are back as sophomores this year, including one of the two who qualified for the national meet.
Meghan Bannatz, who like Ludtke hails from Michigan, will lead the Lady Saints after finishing in the top half of all competitors at the NAIA meet last November. Bannatz placed 121st out of 268 and ran a time of 19:42, her fastest of the season.
“Meghan is a great talent and a very dedicated runner,” says Ludtke. “She had a great freshman season in both cross country and track and went to the nationals in both sports. She will just get better and better with each race.”
Other sophomores returning include Renae Batsch, Sarah Jacob, Sarah Kielbasa, Katie Puleo and the Horn sisters, Jennifer and Jessica.
Jacob had the best times among this remaining group as a frosh, averaging 23:08 over the five 5K races. Her best mark was 23:00 even at the Loyola/Sean Earl Lakefront Invite at the end of September.
Jennifer Horn averaged 25:13 in her 5K runs last fall and peaked at the end of the season with a personal-best 24:40 at the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Association/NAIA Region VII meet on Nov. 4.
Kielbasa, Batsch and Puleo all posted averages between 26:00 and 26:30 and with Kielbasa and Batsch each coming in under the 26:00 mark on at least one occasion. Kielbasa posted a season-best 25:16 and the combined conference/region meet and Batsch ran a 25:52 at Loyola.
Jessica Horn rounded out the season with a 27:15 average in her 5K jaunts but also finished strong, posting her best time of 26:33 at the CCAC/Region VII race.
The group of returnees will be bolstered by the addition on nine new freshmen, giving Ludtke his deepest team to date.
The frosh include Karina Baltazar (Chicago Hubbard), Courtney Burns (Plainfield South), Jen Crouse (Seneca), Cairo Douglas (Neuqua Valley), Dawn Duer (Lockport), Aprille Froelich (Amboy), Danielle Menzynski (Leyden), Nilma Ortiz (Elmwood Park) and Lisa Stolzenbach (Beecher).
“All nine of the freshmen should make contributions this season,” says Ludtke. “It is a talented group of runners and they should all push our returning sophomores to even better performances.”
The schedule is quite similar to last year’s, highlighted by a trip to South Bend, Ind., for the National Catholic Cross Country Championships in mid-September. The NAIA meet moves to the course at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and the Saints will get an opportunity to preview that course when they run at the Carthage College Invitational in early October.
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