INDIANAPOLIS – Since mid-March, the landscape of college athletics impacting Great Midwest Athletic Conference student-athletes stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic have changed in a way we just couldn't have imagined.
The NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships were halted after one day of competition. The NCAA Wrestling Championships and the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships never got off the ground.
And then the spring season came to a complete standstill as member institutions grappled with the ramifications that had a ripple effect throughout the entire nation in all three divisions.
With all that has transpired through the spring and the summer, it is officially time to celebrate the return of one particular fall sport in the league, cross country. Tiffin will host the Great Midwest Championships, the lone conference title event of the fall season, on Saturday, October 24, as the first to resume for the new academic year.
Still, it will be a strange feeling not seeing these cross country performers advance on to the regionals with customary hopes of punching their ticket, individually or as a team, to the NCAA Championships which have already been canceled.
Precautions are being taken on every campus as a path for the safe return of competition remains a work in progress. The majority of fall sports across Division II are preparing for their competition in the spring.
The non-championship segment of golf and tennis will also see some of the Great Midwest's best able to display their skills in the very near future. Teams will still be operating on a shortened schedule – most cross country programs will be running in three or four meets.
Hillsdale will host one, Kentucky Wesleyan welcomes teams to its Fast Cats Classic, Cedarville another on its famed Elvin R. King Course, along with Tiffin and Findlay. With a relatively small window to make an impression, it will be interesting to see which teams capitalize on this season's opportunity. The league also anticipates the pending arrival of Ashland, which will join officially for the 2021 season.
Men's Preview
Some of the biggest names have moved on, including Hillsdale's two-time NCAA All-American Joseph Humes, who is attending grad school at Purdue. In 2019, Humes finished 19th at the NCAA Championships in Sacramento, cementing his status as one of the league's greatest in a successful sport conference wide.
Humes owns the conference record (top three times) in the 8K and 5K distances and is second only to Cedarville's Benajmin Tuttle in the 10K in the league records. He also was crowned the Male Collegiate Achievement Award Winner, the highest possible honor a Great Midwest student-athlete can achieve.
The Chargers still have a pair of all-conference senior bookends in the stable, Mark Miller and Morgan Morrison. Both upperclassmen figure to finish towards the top of the leaderboard in each race and will stand to contend to keep Hillsdale's Great Midwest Runner of the Year streak alive.
A string of three consecutive NCAA Championship trips for defending conference champion Walsh will be paused as senior Noah Murray anchors a strong lineup with former conference freshmen of the year Drew Roberts and Beau Boyden.
Murray has the fourth-fastest time in conference history in the 8K and Roberts also has one of the best top-25 times.
Another one of the top names in the mix is Malone's Zach Fresenko, a CoSIDA Academic All-District Team honoree and former Great Midwest Freshman of the Year. Fresenko had two of the league's best races at the conference meet and Royals Challenge for No. 17 and No. 18 all-time in the 8K records. The Pioneers will be coached by David Gramlich as the program remains with oversight by legendary sport icon Jack Hazen.
Women's Preview
Malone's Hannah Thompson stood atop the awards podium with Humes for NCAA All-American status following last year's 6K race. Walsh's Andra Lehotay missed All-American honors by just one spot in the final standings, but Thompson and Lehotay's respective national times were top 10 in the conference records since 2012.
Walsh, Hillsdale and Malone, have regularly appeared in the USTFCCCA National Polls since joining the Great Midwest as full members. Hillsdale won last year's conference team title as NCAA Woman of the Year conference nominee Arena Lewis was a key piece to the puzzle.
Malone's Mackenna Curtis-Collins, now a redshirt junior, broke the conference 6K record last year and added another top-25 time for good measure at the NCAA Championship meet as an individual. The Pioneers will be coached by Tina Oprean with a similar situation as the men with Jack Hazen providing oversight.
Walsh and Hillsdale finished back-to-back at the national championship meet last year in 10th and 11th, respectively. Hillsdale had the slight edge in the conference championship meet. The rivalry between the two programs is developing into one of the most interesting storylines with very little margin for error in a race.
The Cavaliers are led by senior Alexa Leppelmeier, who has national championship experience in both cross country and as a member of the distance medley relay team in track and field along with another senior, Claire Robertson. Bridget Hahn has a top-100 NCAA finish from her freshman season.
That will help soften the blow of losing Lehotay, who was the Female Collegiate Achievement Award Winner for the 2019-20 academic year.
Cedarville junior Alayna Ackley was an all-conference performer and the Yellow Jackets are always contenders given the program's success with five conference titles. Former freshmen of the year Gabrielle Lawrence (Findlay), Bridget Hahn (Walsh) and Maryssa Depies (Hillsdale), will also be in consideration for runner of the year status.