Liz Berkholtz led Minnesota with a 14th-place finish at the Greater Louisville Classic 5K Saturday
Jamie Piepenburg
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Liz Berkholtz placed 14th overall to lead No. 23 Minnesota to a fourth-place team finish at the Greater Louisville Classic Saturday morning.
Minnesota scored 126 points for fourth place behind No. 8 Michigan (42), No. 6 Iowa State (77), and No. 19 Penn State (112), respectively. Lipscomb rounded out the top five teams with 195 points.
“I thought we were in a pretty good spot. We were only 14 points back from Penn State, and I think Penn State is a really good team,” head coach Sarah Hopkins said. “I thought they were kind of a sleeper team in the Big Ten, so to be within 14 points of them was good. Once we looked at the results and saw how close we were to third, we kind of kicked ourselves.
“I think the mistake that we made is that it’s a very fast course and we’re so used to our course where you want to progress through it. You tell them over and over again to get out hard, but it’s hard to do that when you’re a little gun-shy after Griak in terms of not going out too hard.”
Behind Berkholtz (17:15.82), Minnesota’s top five finishers were Haley Johnson in 17th (17:18.78), Madeline Strandemo in 31st (17:30.46), Jamie Piepenburg in 34th (17:33.25), and Kaila Urick in 39th (17:35.09).
The Gophers’ sixth runner was Emily Betz in 18:03.47 for 92nd place, making her official collegiate debut after competing unattached to begin her freshman season. Behind Betz, only two seconds separated Stacey Swatek,Patty O’Brien, Courtney Alama, and Taylor Mikkalson.
“That’s a young group, and even though Swatek is a veteran, she’s never really run in a meet like this before, and they just got out too slow,” Hopkins said of Minnesota’s sixth through 10th runners. “They were too far back to start. They really did move up a lot of bodies, but we talked a little afterward about our depth and tightening up that gap. You just never know what can happen in the top five. Our depth has always been one of our strengths, and we need to keep it one of our strengths.
“It was a good learning experience for that group. They fought well and rebounded when they were out of position. They didn’t settle for being back there.”
The 5K race served as a course preview for the 2015 NCAA National Championship, which will also be hosted by Louisville at E.P. Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville, Ky.
“Overall, I think they learned a lot from today,” Hopkins said. “That’s one of the reasons we came to this meet, to learn the course and figure out how to run it. The consensus of the group was that they had too much left in the tank at the end, which as far as mistakes go, I’m ok with that right now.
“I think had it been a 6K and had we been positioned in the same spot, we probably would have been third because I think we were coming and other teams were starting to fade a little bit. It was a good thing for us to learn the first week of October.”
Members of the team also competed at the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Invitational Friday evening. Emily Castanias ran a season-best 22:35.9 to place fourth in the 6K race, and Molly Eastman clocked a career-best 23:03.8 for 17th place as the second Gopher runner.
Minnesota is off from competition next weekend in preparation for the Wisconsin adidas Invitational and the Tori Neubauer Invitational the following weekend.
Greater Louisville Classic Gopher Finishes
14. Liz Berkholtz, 17:15.82
17. Haley Johnson, 17:18.78
31. Madeline Strandemo, 17:30.46
34. Jamie Piepenburg, 17:33.25
39. Kaila Urick, 17:35.09
92. Emily Betz, 18:03.47
106. Stacey Swatek, 18:10.52
107. Patty O’Brien, 18:10.63
109. Courtney Alama, 18:11.92
110. Taylor Mikkalson, 18:12.68
163. Tess Wasowicz, 18:41.17
