VERMILLION, S.D.—The University of South Dakota men's and women's cross country squad makes its season debut Friday at the NDSU Bison Open. The Coyotes return six women and five men from last year's Summit League Championship rosters.
Since the athletes arrived on campus on August 18, USD head coach
Dan Fitzsimmons has gotten a feel for the shape his squad is in and where they're headed this fall. The Coyotes had a week-long training camp prior to move-in weekend and the start of classes this week.
South Dakota is the five-time defending Summit League champion on the women's side, narrowly edging out North Dakota State by a point last fall to keep the streak alive. Only five schools have a longer active streak of conference titles.
Junior
Jonna Bart and senior
Kianna Stewart are returning second-team all-Summit League runners for the Coyotes, while junior
Kelsi Kearney rounded out the scorers at last year's conference meet in 16th place. Notably, junior
Abby Ripperda was named to the Summit League's 2019 Runners to Watch List after a breakout spring campaign where she garnered all-league honors in the 10,000 meters on the track.
"On the women's side, we have been deeper than other teams the past few years," said Fitzsimmons. "However, our scoring five were the same five runners at nearly every meet last fall. We would like to get to a point where we have seven or nine interchangeable runners, but that's a lot easier said than done. We feel like we have the right people, it's just a matter of getting everybody in the same shape to handle the various distances and paces."
Fitzsimmons noted that the women's 3,000-meter time trial during camp was comparable to a year ago, with Ripperda breaking the record.
On the men's side, the Coyotes have a young group after losing a senior class that included 2018 Summit League individual champion
Eldon Warner. South Dakota will be paced by returning all-league performer sophomore
Merga Gemeda, who placed 10th at the Summit meet last fall. Fitzsimmons cited lone senior
Abdinasir Abdi and freshman
Clayton Whitehead as standing out within that lead pack early on.
"In just a week, the men have improved drastically," said Fitzsimmons. "It has been kind of fun watching them progress throughout camp. Normally during camp week, our athletes get pretty tired and run down, but these guys seem to look better with each day."
Both rosters are filled with young faces, with one senior on the men's side and four on the women's side. Both lost their top runners from a year ago in Warner for the men and
Megan Billington and
Madeline Huglen for the women. Five of the 11 men are freshmen this fall, while 22 of 28 women will vie to make their first conference team in November.
"We have a number of challenges ahead of us," Fitzsimmons confirmed. "How we embrace those challenges is going to determine our fate this season. The challenges take all sorts of shapes and sizes. The competition we are going against at some of these meets are better, the league has a bit more parity on the women's side, there's courses that this group has not seen before, and we are young. We graduated some really talented seniors that you cannot just replace overnight.
"The past four or five years, things have been pretty status quo. We had a nice formula and the same crew of athletes that found success. I would not say we are rebuilding, because I do not feel that way, but this season has a different feel to it. The goals and expectations are extremely high, it's just that we have a few new faces to help us try and accomplish those things."
Fitzsimmons is eager for the Coyotes to get their first race under their belts and to see how the group performs. In addition to host North Dakota State, the Coyotes will face North Dakota, South Dakota State and Concordia-Moorhead. South Dakota's last appearance at the NDSU Bison Open came in 2015 with the women winning and the men finishing runner-up.
The gun goes off for the women's 4,000-meter race at 5:45 p.m. Friday evening, while the men's 6,000-meter race follows at 6:25 p.m.
