While the Grand Valley State University men’s and women’s cross country teams may have lost key seniors from last season’s team, they aren’t looking to rebuild. Instead, GVSU is looking to do what they always do — have people step up and fill key, departed roles.

Both the men’s and women’s teams have dominated this century. The men have won the past 10 NCAA Division II Midwest/Great Lakes Regional Championships, while the women have won 11 straight of the same Regional Championships.

One of the biggest factors for GVSU will be how they replace the graduating seniors from the past season.

“We’re going to need some of the young returners, who potentially don’t have as much experience, to step in and fill those holes from departing members from last year,” said head coach Jerry Baltes, who was named Midwest Region Coach of the year last season. “Some kids are just going to have to grow up and step into producing roles quickly.”

The Lakers will be young on the women’s side. The team sports just one senior, Monica Kinney, who is a two-time cross country All-American. GVSU only has three seniors on the men’s side as well, but will also rely on their juniors to share the leadership duties.

“Brent Showerman raced at the national meet last year and has done a great job at a leadership standpoint,” Baltes said. “Allie Winchester and Monica Kinney are two of our top ladies returning that we will look for big results from. We have six to eight upperclassmen that I think are all good leaders and will do a great job of leading by example.”

With a young roster with new leadership, building team chemistry is important. GVSU recently returned from training camp, where they used their time to get on the same page and make sure everyone knew what was expected of them.

“We just got back from camp and we had a lot of team bonding,” said junior Molly Slavens. “Our mindset this year is the spots being open for making the national lineup and scoring points for conference and regionals. Also for everyone to work together, to push each other, hold each other accountable, being supportive, and staying close with each other.”

When you win a multiple championships in a row, success becomes a tradition. The training camp was also used as a time for the older athletes on the team to show the younger athletes what it takes to continue the success and hopefully pass it on when they become upperclassmen.

“We did lose a lot of people from last year’s team and some of the best runners in the history of the program,” said junior Brent Showerman. “It’s a lot of responsibility carrying on what they set off for us, so I definitely think that the older guys on the team feel a sense of leadership and to show the young guys the ropes and how we do things at Grand Valley to help them set up to be successful.”

Baltes isn’t ready to speculate about where his team is at right now, but understands everything is a process. GVSU opens with their first meet September 9 at the Knight Invitational.

“There’s a long ways to go and we really haven’t done much to see where we’re at,” Baltes said. “It’s a long process that takes time and we aren’t rushing anything. Just taking our time and doing things the right way and hoping we’ll be ready to go for the end of the season.”

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