KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The Western Michigan University cross country team is set to compete in the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on Friday, Oct. 2 in South Bend, Ind. The Notre Dame Invitational started in 1956 but this season the invite is named after former Fighting Irish coach Joe Piane. There are five total races scheduled as the Broncos will be competing in the Women's 5k Gold Division scheduled to begin at 4:15 p.m.
In the Gold Division, the Broncos will be competing against 19 other schools including 14 division-one schools, one division-two school and four division-three schools. In the Gold Division with the Broncos is are two schools ranked in the Great Lakes Region in No. 5 IUPUI and No. 6 Indiana State.
WMU has had three weeks off coming in the Notre Dame Invitational with their last action on Sept. 11 at the George Dales Invitational, the Broncos lone home meet. At the George Dales the Broncos fell to Eastern Michigan by a score of 21-36 as sophomore Maria McDaniel won the meet with a time of 20:33.8. Freshman Sarah Anderson (6th), sophomore Hanne Christensen (8th), sophomore Claire Gilbert (9th) and senior Ann Marie Arseneau (12th) rounded out WMU's top-five runners.
Focus has now turned to the Notre Dame Invite for the Broncos, who have been working on staying together at practice.
“One thing we are trying to work on is to run as a team and as a pack,” Head Coach Kelly Lycan said. “We are trying to stay together because it's easy to lose track of your teammates so we want to keep everybody together and create more of a pack mentality.”
Second year assistant coach Rebekah Smeltzer has been a big part of implementing this idea at practice. “We've been working on getting groups to go through workouts at the same intensity and naturally they have,” Smeltzer said. “We keep encouraging the intensity and we've been trying to hit race pace.”
Following the Notre Dame Invitational, the Broncos will head to the Michigan Intercollegiates in Hillsdale, Mich. on Friday, Oct. 9 at 4 p.m.
