Women's Cross Country: Leaders of the Pack
6/21/1999 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Oct. 20, 1998
By Jay Reddick
For at least a year, the members of the women's cross country team have looked forward to this season.
The program has traditionally worked in cycles - when one group of athletes grows to maturity, the team is at its finest, then that group leaves and another begins the building process again. For Francie Goodridge, in her 15th year at Wake Forest, that's a proven fact. Her athletes have bought into the idea readily, and to prove it, all they have had to do is look at the roster.
The Deacon seniors, like Becky Pollock and Amy Wallace, were being recruited when the last cycle reached its apex with a 12th place finish at the NCAAs in 1994. They have watched and competed as more and more stellar athletes came into the program.
And it all built to the 1998 season.
The Deacs won their first four meets of this year, led by record-setting junior Janelle Kraus, who has won all four of her starts as well.
Sure, it was time for Wake Forest to shine, but it's not like these championships have been given to them. Goodridge and the athletes give credit to their training, both this summer and in-season, for making them ready for the greatness to come.
"It is a mature group, and we've really learned what they can do," Goodridge said. "We've been able to add some things to training. This is the first team I've ever had that can train at least 60 miles a week across the board, and that's significant, because to run 5,000 meters really well you have to do that. This team is wearing out its shoes a lot quicker than we ever have. That makes a difference."
This team actually found glory a year earlier than Goodridge expected, finishing 17th at the NCAAs last fall.
"To finish in the top 20 in the NCAA was a pleasure and something we hadn't expected, and it made this team very hungry for this year," Goodridge said.
The No. 1 attribute that any cross country team needs to be truly successful is togetherness. The team must learn to run in a pack, as close together as possible, in order to fend off competitors. And the best teams usually run in a pack off the course as well, in practice, on road trips and socially.
With few exceptions, most of the Deacons went their separate ways this summer. But they each left with two things: a training program from Goodridge and the type of determination that breeds success. Even while apart, they were together.
"It's really exciting," said Emily Selvidio, a sophomore who has emerged as the Deacs' No. 2 runner. "Last year, we got back into the national scene again, and everyone was excited at the end because we were all coming back. Everyone came back in really good shape. And we expected to do well, but I don't think we expected to do as well as we have."
"I ran by myself all the time, but it was definitely always in the back of my mind that we were going to have a good team this year, and it will pay off in the end."
When the team came back in better shape than ever, that was Goodridge's first clue that this year might be even better than she had expected.
"The summer training is the money in the bank," Goodridge said. "They can go flinging money around all fall, but they're not going to have what they need in the hills and valleys if they haven't put in a really good summer. They all went home with individual and group determination, and it shows."
Kraus and Selvidio have been the stalwarts at the front of the pack, but the strength of this team is that it goes seven deep and sometimes deeper. Seniors Wallace and Pollock and junior Jill Snyder, along with sophomore Kelly Brady and junior transfer Alison Anibaldi, have grown closer as a team by the week.
At the Iona Meet of Champions in New York on Sept. 19, the squad had six of the top 20 finishers to outpoint the nation's No. 3 team, Dartmouth.
That event featured Selvidio's emergence as a leader on the team, as she finished second behind Kraus in a time of 18:04.
"That was her breakthrough, when she came out of the woods, and she was No. 2 over everybody else," Goodridge said. "That was huge for her. That just showed the promise she had shown in high school had borne fruit. She's ready for another leap."
Two weeks later, the Deacs returned home for the Wake Forest Invitational, and while the field for that event was admittedly not spectacular, the team still had an impressive seven of the top eight finishers, led by Kraus' career-best time of 17:02.
"That time she ran on our course was really impressive," Goodridge said. "If we had gone to one of our known, fast, short courses, that would have been in the mid-16s. We haven't gone to one of those yet this year."
Kraus had four first-place finishes last season against middling competition. This year, with the quality of the opposition raised to a new level, Kraus matched her win total halfway through the year. In fact, though the Deacs have faced many more ranked opponents than last year, you couldn't tell it to watch Kraus out front.
"It's interesting what a frontrunner like Janelle will do," Goordidge said. "She thought she was going to be challenged in New York, and at the mile point, she kept surging away from her closest challenger from Dartmouth, who had been right behind her at nationals last year. Afterwards, that runner, Katherine Berry, said, 'I tried to keep up with her, but Janelle just kept putting the motor on.' She didn't let her near her, and it was almost machine-like precision.
"She's really excited about what will come when she is neck and neck with somebody. A big barrier for her is to see a 16: on the front of her time. The ones that are fair courses, you don't see that except the national-champion level runners."
"I'm anxious to get into a race where I can get a lot of competition, see what I can do," Kraus said.
Just as the last two years have built to the 1998 season, the last two months have built to November, when the ACC championships and NCAA regionals and nationals will be contested. The Deacs have never won an ACC championship, never finished higher than 10th at NCAAs. Which begs the question: is this the year?
"Right now, we're pretty much treading new territory," Selvidio said. "We all know about the history. There's boards in the locker room with what teams have done in the past. We had just hoped to improve on last year, but I don't know what we can accomplish."
"This may be the best total team of any group we've had," Goodridge said. "The best we've done in the past was 10th in 1987, a group of very talented athletes, but a group that never quite jelled as a team. It never took hold like it has with this team, it never was a team we could work the way we can work this one, to see a team take hold and come together as an entity."
