November 1

The LumberJills have been led all season by freshman Amanda Strick and senior Melissa McNell.  On Saturday at the UMAC Conference Meet, the pair ran perfect race strategy to take 6th and 7th place to earn All-Conference honors. “Amanda and Melissa really put together a smart, gutsy race.” said Coach Dave Beeksma. “It was exciting to watch!” With a stiff wind and a very soggy race course, Strick and McNell knew they would need each other to pace and draft. Starting slowly, they worked their way through the pack. At the first mile, they were running together in the 23rd and 24th positions. With each mile they kept passing the competition until they were in the top ten. “Going into this race I knew that those two had the ability to be top ten. When they moved up to the 9 and 10 spots without much race distance left I thought that was where they would end up.  But, they just kept cranking and before we knew it they were at the 6 and 7 spot. It was incredibly exciting. They moved on the 5th spot with about 300 meters to go, but simply ran out of gas.” Comments Coach Beeksma. “It was a flat course, but with all of the rain we have had it was like running on a sponge. Almost every other team ran up to 1 to 1:30 slower than their previous best times. In contrast, Amanda dropped her time by almost two minutes and Melissa dropped her time by 30 seconds.”