My Championship Experience - Women's Cross Country Edition

My Championship Experience is a diary blog written by Summit League student-athletes detailing their experiences at each of the 19 Championships.

Omaha sophomore Kristin Rogers' championship experience at the 2012 Summit League Cross Country Championships:

The Summit League championships were a new and exciting experience for us Mavericks. The meet was the first D-I league championship for our university since our switch to The Summit League last year. Our first full day in Detroit was Friday. We began our morning with breakfast and an inspirational speaker named Dr. Ray Johnson. Afterwards, we headed downtown to see a little bit of the city. While downtown, we ate at the Hard Rock Café and enjoyed time as a team. Friday afternoon we went to run the course at Oakland. I thought the course was really pretty and well-marked out. After we ran we returned to our hotel to get ready for the banquet at six. The dinner was delicious, and the speaker, Neely Spence did a very good job. After dinner our team had a short meeting and went to bed. 

The morning of the race was thrilling and scary all at the same time. We knew that this meet was going to make history for our school, being that it was our first D-1 league meet; we also knew that we had a couple awesome seniors on our team to run for. We went about warm-ups and everything as usual. We had nothing to lose. We came in brand new, ranked last, and ready to go. As the race went off we knew that if we gave it our best, we would be content, so that’s what we did. In the end, we took fifth place and were especially proud of our lead senior Amanda who took third overall and concluded an awesome season for herself.

I was proud of my team because I know where we’ve come from in the last three years. Prior to my arrival here two years ago our team was very small and not overly competitive. Coach Bierbaum does a great job recruiting.  He brought in my class two years ago which added six girls more than doubling our team. Then again, this year, we added another six girls to get a total of eighteen. The improvement of our team as a whole is exciting. Many of us are very young and we have a lot of hope for the future. We’re extremely honored to be a part of The Summit League, the experience of the league meet was both a learning one, and very exciting one. I realize at the league meet more than ever that I run for a team. My team is everything. These girls are my best friends, my training partners, and we do everything together. Our team is so close that when we go into a big race such as the league meet, I know we will run for each other, push each other and I can count on the fact that if any of us are having an off race, someone will be there to step up in their place. I guess that’s the best part of it all, no matter what happens, we will be okay. Even in this new and sometimes scary experience, I always kept that in the back of my mind. So to my team I’d like to say, thank-you.

-Kristin Rogers 

Don’t forget to check out the next edition of My Championship Experience as it follows the Women’s Soccer Championship, Nov. 1-4 and throughout the 2012-13 season for coverage at each of The Summit League Championships.