Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
Aug 12, 20228 min
This looks wrong, doesn't it? Seeing the Michigan State women at TSR #22? It almost feels like we made a typo and the Spartans should instead be ranked at TSR #12.
But no, this ranking is intentional regardless of how odd it may seem.
The Michigan State women have easily been one of the best distance programs in the country over the last few seasons. They have been the definition of greatness in the BIG 10 and have been a top-10 team (or close to one) on numerous occasions, even earning a 4th place podium honor at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
However, in 2022, this team will look very different. Their best runners have left and the scoring potency of this team will remain in a state of limbo until we see how the Spartans perform this fall.
And yet, despite all of that, history suggests that we shouldn't bet against Michigan State.
Last fall, Michigan State proved to be a competitive team once again. While they were far from perfect, they still held their own and produced a handful of solid performances.
Roy Griak, however, was not one of those performances.
After a pair of respectable wins over Grand Valley State and Toledo at the MSU Spartan Invitational, the Michigan State women ventured to Roy Griak where they would face the likes of Minnesota, Iowa State, Tennessee and Liberty.
On paper, those were all very solid programs, many of which were nationally competitive. In fact, both Minnesota and Iowa State would go on to earn a top-10 finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
But even so, the Spartans ended up faltering, finishing 5th overall, just one point behind both Tennessee and Liberty, two teams that tied for 3rd.
Superstar low-stick Jenna Magness delivered on her expectations with a runner-up result while veteran Lynsie Gram secured a very strong 13th place finish of her own. However, from there, Michigan State had a bit of a drop-off.
The backend scoring trio of Makayla Perez, Kaitlyn Hynes and Katie Osika, many of whom are proven high-quality scorers, faded a bit, earning finishes of 25th, 27th and 34th, respectively.
It was admittedly not a great showing for a Michigan State program that by all means should have finished 3rd overall. Still, the actual point totals suggest that the Spartan's 5th place finish wasn't as concerning as it may have seemed in the moment.
Fast forward to the Nuttycombe Invitational and things did improve for Michigan State. A 12th place finish at the biggest regular season meet of the year didn't jump off the page, but it was still a very solid result.
But then you have to look at who Michigan State actually beat this time around. Teams such as Utah State, Butler, Washington, Stanford and many more all fell to the Spartans on the Wisconsin-hosted course.
A 4th place finish from Magness was once again monumental and Gram had one of the better races of her career, placing 19th overall and effectively giving the Spartans one of the strongest 1-2 punches in the field.
From there, gaps began to form. Hynes was a decent-ish third scorer, but the rest of this lineup simply put up too many points which ultimately kept Michigan State out of the top-10.
Even so, this was a promising rebound performance after a rough showing at Roy Griak.
The BIG 10 XC Championships were next on the schedule for Michigan State, another legitimate test against teams that flexed a variety of strengths and weaknesses. And while the Spartans had to settle for 3rd place, it was clear that the team was beginning to find promising momentum.
Seeing the Minnesota women take home the conference title was hardly surprising, but Michigan State was only four points away from Wisconsin and were able to upend the Michigan women by three points.
All things considered, that's a result that the women from East Lansing had to be happy about.
As expected, Magness was a superstar, earning an individual bronze medal while Gram continued to emerge as a pleasantly surprising front-runner, finishing 8th overall. However, the biggest surprise was seeing Hynes deliver an excellent 12th place finish, giving Michigan State a legitimate top-three instead of a limited top-two.
Even better, Perez secured a 20th place individual finish, giving the Spartans four women in the top-20 and the second-best group of four scorers in the field (behind only Minnesota).
Ultimately, a 40th place individual finish by the team's fifth scorer would put Michigan State in 3rd place. Still, for the most part, the BIG 10 XC Championships were a very encouraging meet for a team that was slowly gaining confidence.
After an unexciting and somewhat expected 4th place finish at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships, Michigan State would venture to the NCAA XC Championships. Once there, the Spartans would post a very solid 16th place finish, a result that was somewhat in line with the team's BIG 10 performance. They finished just 10 points behind Alabama.
Magness placing 14th overall was hardly a surprise and Gram's 48th place finish, while not quite the All-American finish that we thought she was capable of, was still a great performance.
Unsurprisingly, the drop-off from those two women to their final three scorers proved to be just as challenging as it had been all season long. Individual finishes of 133rd, 146th and 197th, while truthfully not bad, certainly left room for improvement.
Alright, let's just rip off the band-aid and get the bad news out of the way.
Both Jenna Magness and Lynsie Gram are expected to be out of cross country eligibility this fall...and that's just beyond brutal.
Magness and Gram were outstanding last fall. They were the two-headed monster who gave Michigan State a strong identity and an ability to be nationally competitive. Without those two, last year's team would have struggled to qualify for the national meet.
In fact, there's a good chance that they wouldn't have even made it to Tallahassee without Magness and Gram. Most people would probably get behind me on that take.
Now, this is usually the point in the article where I say something like, "But the good news is that they return everyone else!" But the unfortunate fact is that Michigan State doesn't return everyone else.
In fact, they also lose a key scorer in Makayla Perez who will be finishing her graduate work at Western Michigan. Melanie Helder, the team's fourth scorer as Nuttycombe and their seventh runner at the national meet, is finishing her eligibility at Evansville as a graduate transfer.
So what's the catch? Who are the new transfers or superstar recruits who will dramatically change this team's scoring structure for the better?
Well, in all honesty, there is no catch. Michigan State loses their most important scorers from a team that heavily relied upon them last fall. There's no way to dance around that fact.
Even so, there are individual pieces on this roster who could end up being significantly better in 2022 than one might expect, including veteran Katie Osika.
The 2021 cross country season was surprisingly unkind to Osika. Along with Perez, she was expected to be a vital middle lineup scorer who was potentially going to evolve into the runner that Lynsie Gram was last fall.
One of the Spartan's top returners from last fall actually finished 101st at the NCAA Winter XC Championships and even secured a promising 16th place finish at the BIG 10 Winter XC Championships.
If she was racing at that same level during the 2021 fall season, then this Michigan State team would have looked very different. But now, Osika will be viewed as one of the marquee names of this lineup, carrying the potential, in our eyes, to be a top-tier scorer that the Spartans so desperately need.
Thankfully, Michigan State also returns Kaitlyn Hynes, a true rising sophomore who showed moments of brilliance last fall.
Yes, Hynes was a bit inconsistent throughout 2021, but that's understandable when you consider how young and inexperienced she was.
Hynes' 12th place finish at the BIG 10 XC Championships was a huge result for multiple reasons. Not just because she contributed strong points, but because she proved that she could be a legitimate low-stick for this team in 2022 and beyond.
She didn't race during the spring months, but her indoor track season was fairly respectable.
If Hynes is able to further refine her talent and build upon an encouraging 2021 cross country season, then there is very real potential that she becomes a true front-runner for this squad in just a few months time.
Outside of those two, Michigan State needs to piece together a lineup with minimal scoring drop-offs, a task far easier said than done.
Rising sophomore Mckenna Veen could be a key name to watch for the Michigan State women this fall. She made appearances in the Spartans' lineup throughout last fall, even emerging as the team's fifth scorer at the BIG 10 XC Championships in her first-ever collegiate cross country season.
Sure, Veen had her fair share of learning moments throughout last year, but there is so much room for her to improve in 2022 now that she actually has a year of cross country under her belt. Plus, this is someone who ran 9:26 (3k) and 16:31 (5k) on the track.
While those results don't blow you away, they are still quality marks that should translate to her being a middle-lineup scorer.
Of course, there are more women than just Osika, Hynes and Veen who will be toeing the line for Michigan State this fall.
Lauren Freeland should absolutely be a name to watch. Yes, she made a few cross country appearances for Michigan State last fall, but it was her success on the track that caught our attention.
The middle distance specialist had a breakout season in the 1500 meters this past spring, running a very competitive time of 4:14 to place 14th at the NCAA East Preliminaries, just two spots out from a national qualifying spot.
Admittedly, we have no idea how Freeland will translate her 1500 meter success to the grass. Still, one has to believe that her clear jump up in fitness will significantly benefit her this fall.
To what extent? I guess we're about to find out...
We're also very big fans of Katelyn Stewart-Barnett who has never run cross country in the NCAA before. As a freshman, Stewart-Barnett was sneaky-good on the track. She ran 4:21 for 1500 meters and posted a solid time of 10:11 in the steeplechase.
For someone so young to show so many promising signs, specifically in the steeplechase, we have to think that Stewart-Barnett will play some kind of varsity role for Michigan State later this fall.
It feels like she has tremendous upside, but much like Freeland, trying to properly gauge that upside for the 2022 cross country season is a tricky task.
Trying to go through and talk about all of the youngsters on this team would be a exhaustive task. Still, it's important to know that women like Emily Bardwell and Fatima Giron have shown a few encouraging signs of their own across the past three seasons.
While they still have a long way to go, it wouldn't be surprising to see either of those two women within MSU's top-seven this fall...or even their top-five!
And when you tack on a recruiting class that features numerous women with sub-18 personal bests over 5000 meters, you have to think that one of these Michigan State underclassmen will have a breakout season this fall.
In our minds, it would almost be surprising if that doesn't happen.
It's wildly apparent that the Michigan State women are going to be in a bit of a pickle this fall.
They are without a large handful of their most potent scorers, they have no guarantee that certain women will be at their best and they have to rely on youngsters who are not always the most consistent.
But this is Michigan State we're talking about. This team has ALWAYS been good, or at least for as long as I've been covering this sport. There are countless individual pieces who can collectively make a strong contingent of scorers and that's hard to ignore.
However, maybe more importantly, it feels like half of their lineup is due for a breakout season. Whether or not that actually happens has yet to be seen, but the potential is absolutely there.
It's understandable if people end up being less optimistic about this team than we are. After all, the Spartans were just crushed by the loss of numerous standout scorers.
But the BIG 10 as a whole seems to be in a down year. Indiana and Wisconsin lost their best scorers, Minnesota loses nearly everyone and Illinois will be without a handful of long-time veterans.
So get on the Michigan State bandwagon while you can.
Because by the time the BIG 10 XC Championships roll around, it may be too late.