Nov. 13, 2004

Contact: Brian McCann

YPSILANTI, Mich. -- The 2004 season came to a close on Saturday (Nov. 12) for the Cleveland State cross country with a strong effort at the NCAA Great Lakes Region Cross Country Championship. The 6,000-meter race, which was hosted by Eastern Michigan University, was run at Eaglecrest Golf Course in Ypsilanti, Mich.

The Viking roster, depleted because of injuries, consisted of just two runners for the race.

Senior Julene Nickoloff paced the Vikings for the seventh straight meet, turning in a time of 27:53.3 while junior Shilah Pratt finished in 28:16.8. Junior Vanessa Anna, who was expected to run, was forced to withdraw from the race just prior to its start because of recurring foot problems.

"I couldn't be any prouder of the effort that Julene and Shilah showed today," head coach Allison Had said. "This has been a very difficult season for both of them yet they kept their mind on the race and turned in one of their best efforts of the year."

"I will miss having Julene on my team next year because she was a very good team leader. She truly has the running mindset and I would have liked to have had more time to develop her skills," Had said.

The race marked the conclusion of the season for the Vikings under Had, who joined the program in July and had to battle through a series of injuries that left CSU without the numbers to score as a team at any of the seven meets during the year.

"I couldn't do much about the numbers problem that we had when I was hired because it was too late in the year to recruit new runners," Had said. "Now that the season is over, I will focus my time on going out into the Cleveland community to find a half-dozen or so new runners who are committed to running at the collegiate level so that we can start the process of building a championship program at Cleveland State."