MSU women's cross country races to 6th place at NCAA Championships

Joe Dandron | Lansing State Journal

The Michigan State women's cross country team earned a sixth-place finish at the NCAA Championships on Saturday in Terra Haute, Indiana.

MSU seniors Jeralyn Poe and Annie Fuller both finished in the top 40 in the rainy conditions to earn All-American honors

“We all went into the race with pretty big goals and excitement," Fuller said. "I think we just did a really good job of being our best on that day.”

On the men's side, MSU junior Morgan Beadlescomb, who was in the race as an individual qualifier, finished 23rd to also get an All-American spot.

“Even though I came as an individual I had a team supporting me, I wasn’t really alone which was just great for my mentality," Beadlescomb said. "It was great to kind of see everything come together for myself and the women’s team.”

The MSU women were Big Ten champions this season for the first time since 2014 and also won the NCAA Great Lakes Regional.

"It’s been a real privilege," cross country coach Walt Drenth said. "They (the MSU women) are a remarkable group of people. They will all do phenomenal things in whatever they choose to do."

The Spartans were ranked No. 5 coming into the race and finished two spots off the podium, but for Fuller the meet was about more than that.

"It's one minute on the podium, but the ride has been amazing, every other minute of the day has just been so much fun. We still had the race, cool down," Fuller said. "Just because we didn’t have that one minute on the podium doesn’t take away from what we are as a team … it would be dumb of us, we seriously did the best we could today."

After the race, as the senior runners threw their shoes into the famed shoe tree at the Lavern Gibson cross country course in Terra Haute – which many have dubbed "Cross Country Town, USA" – the end of the season was full of good memories and pride.

"I think one of the big things about this season and this meet was just how much support we had from family and teammates or friends," said Poe, a Nebraska native. "I think that kind of stands out more than the accomplishments we had this season ... along the whole race we were hearing, 'Go Green.' "

Poe finished with a 6K time of 20:40.3, while Fuller finished just behind with a time of 20:42.

The scoring runners that also raced for MSU were sophomore Jenna Magness (46th), senior Lynsie Gram (49th), junior Sarah Kettel (121st), Maggie Ferrell (137th) and India Johnson (239th).

"I hope that at some point they can look back at this and be really proud," Drenth said. "There were only five teams better than them."

Contact Joe Dandron at jdandron@lsj.com or (517) 377-1065. Follow him on Twitter @JosephDandronMI.