The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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"We regrouped well at the re- gional. At the national meet we were ranked sixth going in, and that's where we finished. As a coach, you always want a little bit more but, I'd say overall, it was definitely a solid season for us." A national championship was never realistic given the field, but McGuire did think his runners could possibly reach the podium as one of the top three teams. "National champion New Mexico might be the best women's team ever put together in all the years I've been paying attention to rankings," Mc- Guire said. "They definitely were the prohibitive favorites going in. "We had beaten Oregon [third- place finisher] and Colorado [sec- ond-place finisher] earlier in the year so we were confident. It's a matter of getting it done at the highest level on that day." Junior Erin Finn finished 19th at the national meet to pace the Wolver- ines and earn her second cross coun- try All-America designation. She also captured All-America honors as a freshman. McGuire couldn't say enough about Finn, who ran the last 4,000 meters of the six-kilometer race barefooted. "What she did in the race speaks volumes to the kind of competitor she is," McGuire. "She just has the innate ability to compete. The adver- sity that she had losing two shoes is just ridiculous. "You see one shoe lost once in a while but losing both is really rare. There was a pack of really tight run- ners, and they caught her heels on both feet. Once the shoe started com- ing off she just had to kick them off." With Finn returning and others improving, McGuire thinks that his team could threaten to get on the po- dium in 2016. "We should be a top-10 team again, and we should contend for the Big Ten title," he said. "A healthy, full year from Erin will be great. "There's a good nucleus there, and then it's a matter of who is waiting in the wings. I think we have some people ready to step up. Obviously, staying healthy is paramount and continuing that trend will allow us to field a really solid team." Volleyball The volleyball team began strongly, racing out to a 10-0 start, but then struggled some in the extremely competitive Big Ten, finishing with a 9-11 league record and a 20-13 over- all mark. Head coach Mark Rosen did, however, have his team playing some of its best volleyball toward the end of the season. The Wolverines recorded upset wins over No. 14 Ohio State and No. 4 Penn State on the road, fol- lowed by losses to No. 6 Nebraska and unranked Indiana before finish- ing the regular season with a home win over No. 18 Illinois. "We knew we were going to have a lot of work to do at the beginning of the year," Rosen said. "We had a lot of turnover. We lost a setter who was a four-year starter, and we had a set- ter who was in the mix to replace her, but she got an illness that wouldn't