Millersville Heads Into PSAC Championship with Excitement

Millersville, Pa. – The Millersville women's cross country team may be young but will use its growth as a team to offset its inexperience Saturday at the PSAC Championships.

Five out of the 14 runners on the 2012 squad were upperclassmen and three of the top five finishers at the conference meet were juniors or seniors. Millersville is taking a much different approach this time around. Some of the team's top runners are freshmen, and eighth year head coach Andy Young has been working all season to gel the team.

"We've been working really hard at using more of a team concept as far as the way we run," said Young. "We will send Shannon Cruz out as the frontrunner, we'll have a pack of runners to close the gap on her and there will be a secondary pack as well."

A year ago, the frontrunner for Millersville meet in and meet out was senior, Sarah Mulvey. This season Cruz, who is only a freshman, has stepped to the forefront. The Lancaster native has paced the Marauders in each of their five events this season. Her transition to collegiate competition has been seameless.

"I did all of the training over the summer that coach told us to do, and I tried to follow it strictly," said Cruz. "I like races and it doesn't really bother me because I just brush the nerves off."

Millersville placed fifth at the Dickinson Invitational and also at the Gettysburg Invitational. Young knows how far his team has come this season and is excited to see how they will perform Saturday.

"As a team, we're excited to get them there to see what they do," said Young. "We know we're a lot more solid than we were at the beginning of the year, and we're excited to maybe knock off some people and kind of be that dark horse."

Behind Cruz, the leadership of two seniors, Megan Meyer and Brittney Martin has been huge for a team that has so many young runners. Meyer, after being named captain prior to the beginning of the season, has scored in all five events for the Marauders. Martin has scored in one event but it's what these two do off the course that has really helped this team.

"I think Megan Meyer and Brittney Martin have done a really nice job of getting our athletes to understand the mentalities that it takes to be a real team," said Young. "They even called a team meeting a couple weeks ago and addressed that we weren't running as a team and that was a pivotal point because it really showed at Gettysburg."

The Marauders' youthful but talented core includes sophomore Amanda Long, who has run in the No. 3 spot behind Cruz and Meyer most of the season. True freshman Abigail Daley did not run in the first two events but has come on strong with a 34th-place finish--fourth on the team--at Gettysburg last week. Similarly, Elizabeth Reese missed two events with an injury but placed third among Marauder runners at the Paul Short Invitational and fifth on the team at Gettysburg.

Just like their coach, the Marauders are excited for such a big stage.

"My team's really excited because this past weekend we ended up working as a team and really pushed each other," said Cruz. "A lot of people are back healthy so I think it will be a good experience. We're a young team so it'll be interesting."

Shippensburg has won five consecutive team championships, and Edinboro has been the runner-up three years in a row. The PSAC Championships are set to start in Kutztown, Pa. at 10 a.m.

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