September 3, 2009

YOUNG GUNS ARMED AND READY FOR 2009 SEASON

RICHMOND, Va. – The youth movement has hit the VCU Women's Cross Country squad hard.

Heading into the 2009 campaign, the Rams are sporting a roster of six freshman, four sophomores and a redshirt junior who is trying her first season at the cross country length.

VCUathletics.com caught up with Assistant Women's Track & Field Coach and Director of Cross Country Ethan Tussing to preview this year's young, but very talented squad.

1) With zero experienced upperclassmen on the roster, what do you see as the biggest challenge for this year's team?
Leadership. There is no one who has been around, made the hard decisions and sacrifices, and paid her dues on her way to being a successful runner to help guide the perspective of this young team. With the wrong leadership we could struggle. With the right leadership we could accomplish more than anyone could predict. Until someone steps up as a leader and helps from an athlete to athlete point of view hold her teammates accountable for what we all need to do to be successful than we are effectively the blind leading the blind.

2) How do you think the youth will give the team an advantage?
With youth comes energy and excitement and these two characteristics can go a long way to helping someone cover 3 to 4 miles in a race.

3) What's the biggest challenge about being an urban school and running cross country?
Most people would say that the running environment can be counter productive running on the roads so consistently, but Richmond has so many great parks nearby that we almost make this a non-factor. However when we do run the roads I think the traffic is probably the biggest challenge. A cross country runner can't win a head on battle with a car so we have to stop and wait for traffic from time to time.

4) Talk about some of the newcomers for this year....
Hannah Leffew comes in with a track 5k PR nearly sub 19 minutes... far and beyond any runner in recent history has come in with, Sarah Earman and Brittiny Wolfe come in with great speed over 800 meters which I hope we can apply to the cross country course, and Shannon Brady was an outstanding all around distance runner in high school who completes our incoming group of experienced distance runners which will be the bulk of our scores this year.

5) Who do you expect to step up and be the one or two key leaders for this year's team?
I look towards sophomore Christina Costello as the heart and soul leader of our team. She has such a great personality, spirit and work ethic that I hope all our athletes now and into the future will have. Beyond that as noted earlier we are still looking for that athlete who has the ideal blend of athleticism and leadership who can push her teammates to achieve more in every practice and competition.

6) Which runner do you think will be the "sleeper" on this year's team?
Freshman Ariana Jones has no prior experience running cross country but appears to have all the right tools to give other teams in the CAA fits as she develops the strength and stamina to go the distance this year.