Wake Forest Athletics
2002 Cross Country Preview
8/13/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Aug. 13, 2002
As the 2002 fall sports season approaches, the Wake Forest Men and Women??s Cross Country teams have a lot to look forward to. The men, coming off of a second place finish at the 2001 ACC Championships, return top runner Nathan Sisco, the defending ACC Champion. 2001 NCAA automatic qualifier Anne Bersagel and 2001 NCAA All-Southeast region member Risa Rutland will be back for the women.
Despite these individual achievements, both the men and women??s squads have one thing in common: youthfulness. There are only five seniors combined returning for the Deacs this season after losing eight to graduation. Lack of experience, however, does not mean that this group of harriers isn??t ready for competition. ??I think that we??re going to be very good,?? stated men??s head coach Gary Sievers. ??We??re young; we??re untested, so that??s a little bit scary. Out of the seven that competed for us at nationals, two are back. But we redshirted some freshmen last year and we??ve got a good group coming back. Again, time will tell. As the year goes on, we will get better.??
The women will have a full slate to select from, choosing between the two seniors, seven juniors, six sophomores and five freshmen that fill the roster. ??One of the expectations is that we felt like we didn??t have as good a year as we were capable of last year,?? explains women??s head coach Annie Schweitzer Bennett. ??I think we had more talent than we totally got out of everybody. We had a few shining stars in Risa (Rutland), Anne (Bersagel) and Danielle (Coon). We had a good year in Adralyn Wendel. In cross country the secret is putting them all together. So, we feel more confident this year. That??s our main goal, to get seven young ladies up and running. We will have a lot to choose from but we want to get seven hitting on the same day. That??s our main goal.??
For the men, returning ACC Champion Nathan Sisco will be leading the pack of young runners. ??Nathan Sisco, who was the individual champ for us last year at the conference championships, is definitely are number one guy back,?? said Sievers. ??We??re giving him more of a break this summer because he just had a long year last year. He will start slow, but obviously he??s the ACC returning champ, so he??s our number one guy.??
Also back after a year off will be senior Mike Altieri. During the 1999-2000 cross country season, Altieri won the NC Intercollegiate Championships, the Winthrop Invitational and took 12th at the ACC Championships. ??Mike Alteri, who was our number one runner a couple of years ago, is back on the team now and running well,?? stated Sievers. ??I think as the year goes on, Mike will get better.??
Anne Bersagel, an Academic All-American who finished 58th individually at last year??s nationals, is the top returnee for the women. Joining her will be Danielle Coon who, along with Bersagel, finished in the top-15 at the 2002 USA Winter Cross Country Junior National Championships. Risa Rutland, a senior who earned all-regional honors at the 2001 NCAA Southeast Regional Championships, is also expected to have a strong season. Another familiar face, Jill Miller, will also be back for Wake after not competing last season. Said Bennett, ??Anne Bersagel, who was 58th in the NCAA??s last year and finished top 12 at the ACC is our top returning runner. Danielle Coon is running real well and will perform well throughout the season. Jill Miller, who sat out last year, is returning and running well also. Risa Rutland has been with us for two seasons and have high expectations for her this year.??
Both recruiting classes are smaller than usual this year, with only two joining the men and four joining the women. However, each team has redshirt three freshmen, which will allow for depth on the roster while the freshmen adjust to the college level. ??What we??ve got is a bunch of freshman who didn??t compete last year,?? stated Sievers. ??Andrew Ice is definitely in there, so is Kevin Jones, Sean Stevens, Brandon Bartholomew, Brian Smith. They??re all going to be in there. I think they can have an immediate impact on the program. We recruited them for that specific reason and they??ll get better as the year goes on. Redshirting them last season helped them a lot. At this level they run 8K and 10K at nationals, as opposed to 5K in high school, and that is a big difference. It takes time both mentally and physically to adjust to a different distance like that and time is always good in that instance.??
??Our freshmen coming in are a smaller class than usual, but we think Ashley Dunnigan and Erin Franklin will do a great job,?? stated Bennett. Adding to the women??s group of newcomers are transfers Lisa Gibb and Anna Sherman. Gibbs, who transferred from the University of Washington, was an All-American selection and placed 35th individually at last year??s NCAA Championships.
This season??s schedule will truly be a test of team inexperience. The meets will allow for the Deacs to run against some of the nation??s top runners. The women will approach each meet with a full squad from the beginning, something yet to attempted in Bennett??s four years at the helm of the program. ??The schedule is going to be interesting. We start off in Boone and this is probably the first time I??m going to run a full squad. I??ve never done that before,?? stated Bennett. The men plan on using the first couple of meets as learning and teaching experiences. ??It really doesn??t do anything for us to be beating our brains out on the courses early,?? explains Sievers. ??Those first couple of meets, we will train through them and we will run them at a necessity and nothing more. Our first two meets, the meet at Appalachian and our home meet are really pre-season meets. I will rest some of our runners. I will run a ??B?? squad.??
Even though the coaches have different approaches to the meets, they share the goal of making a post-season NCAA appearance. The Demon Deacon quest for that post season appearance will begin on August 31 at the Mountaineer Open in Boone, NC.
Players Mentioned
