News

By Alex Freeman, MCC Communications Coordinator

Abby Davis made quite an impression in her collegiate cross country debut Sept. 5. 

The freshman torched the rest of the field at the Grand Rapis Community College Raider Invitational, finishing in first place by 18 seconds with a time of 19:21. As it turned out, Davis’ time was one of the best in NJCAA Division II. 

As of Sept. 18, Davis holds the fifth-fastest time among women’s runners in NJCAA DII. Even more exciting, however, may be that Davis could have much more in store for the Centurions. In high school, running for the Vestaburg Wolverines, Davis peaked with a personal best time of 18:26 at the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 4 State Finals, finishing fourth. Knowing she’s capable of more, she had a strategy going into the GRCC race and it resulted in a first-place finish. 

“I was not focused on doing my personal best time at the GRCC meet,” Davis said. “It was a small meet, and my coach told me to go with the flow of the front pack for a bit of the race then kick to win it. I feel really excited for the rest of the season to really show what I can do.” 

Davis’ running career has been an inspirational steady rise. As a freshman at Vestaburg, she started in the middle of a pack of talented runners. Establishing a personal record of 22:15 as a freshman, she worked her best time down by about a minute each year until she ultimately became one of the best runners in the state. 

“I noticed the more consistent I got, the more my times were dropping,” Davis said. “In my senior year, I broke 19 minutes early at a very hot meet, which gave me motivation to see what I could do at the end of the season.” 

Vestaburg cross country head coach Mike Breidinger said Davis’ progression wasn't a big secret, nor was she naturally gifted from the beginning. Rather, her status as one of the top runners in the state came from a relentless work ethic. 

“She just bought in and did the long-term work,” Breidinger said. “We tweaked her workouts to follow a progression as she became faster, but the biggest factors to her success were becoming a student of the sport, learning the ‘why’ of what we do, and just working consistently year-round towards her next goal. She has rewritten the distance records at Vestaburg for a lasting impact.” 

While she’s the top runner for MCC, Davis doesn’t present as a traditional leader. She’s quiet and unassuming, and Centurions’ head coach Nate Van Holten hopes she can discover her voice as the season progresses. 

“She’s a leader in the sense of her speed and everyone looks up to her because she’s faster than them,” Van Holten said. “I’d like her to be more active in having a voice. It’s been interesting, it took her a while to get to the level of running that she’s at, but she has a great skill set. I’m trying to help her mindset, she knows she can finish pretty high at the national meet, it’s just a matter of where.” 

“She wasn’t often loud or outspoken in her leadership like our society likes to paint leadership,” Breidinger added. “Rather, she was a leader by example while having the mentality of supporting her teammates in their own goals. The kind of leadership that doesn’t look for attention, but rather just gets things done and keeps focusing on the goal at hand.” 

Heading into the championship portion of the cross country season, Van Holten hopes to best prepare Davis for the big stages of regional and national competition. Small things can make a big difference in cross country and Van Holten hopes that Davis can increase her aggressiveness, especially early in the big races. 

“If you’re going to race for the top spot, you’re going to have to be able to go out with the top group initially, even if that’s maybe above the pace that you feel comfortable with,” he said. “So she’ll have to get out of her comfort zone a little bit and just trust in the end that you’ll be strong enough to survive a quick pace early on. And you also have to believe that you belong there because if you don’t, you won’t keep up with them.” 

Given her prolific high school career, Davis presumably would have had other collegiate options for her cross country career. However, she was already attending MCC as an Early College student. Area high school students have an opportunity to apply to MCC’s Early College program, which starts in their junior year of high school and allows them to graduate with their high school diploma and an associate degree in three years. As a third-year Early College student, technically now a collegiate freshman, Davis was already familiar with MCC and the transition to the cross country team was fairly seamless. 

“Starting school and cross country at MCC was never a hard transition from high school,” she said. “I know just about everyone here and I am so close to home, which is nice. So far, MCC cross country has been great. As a runner, MCC prepares me to run for a four-year university in the future.” 

“I know there’s some colleges that have been talking to her, so I’m just letting that play out,” Van Holten added. “I’ve asked her a couple of times where she’s looking and what she’s thinking. I’m waiting to get into the season a little bit farther; there’s still some trust that needs to be built between her and I. But I hope to give her some wisdom or knowledge of what she’s getting into with teams that she’s interested in.” 

Davis’ next chance to top her season-best time will come Friday, Sept. 26, at the MCCAA Northern Conference Meet at Camp Pet-O-Se-Ga in Alanson.