News

By Ryan Schlehuber, MCC Sportswriter

Abby Davis finished in the top 10 for Montcalm Community College at the Muskegon Jayhawk Invitational cross country meet at University Park Golf Course in Muskegon, Saturday, Oct. 11. 

Davis (Vestaburg, Mich.), a freshman at MCC, finished eighth out of 149 runners with a time of 18 minutes, 28.72 seconds in the 5K race.  

McKinley Jones (who was not affiliated with a college team competing at the invitational) took first place with a time of 18:04.43, followed by Muskegon Community College’s Tatum Dykstra (18:11.93) and Emily Gordon (also unaffiliated with a college team), who took third with a time of 18:15.49.  

As a team, MCC’s women’s team finished in 13th place out of 16, with 352 points. Wayne State won the tournament, scoring 22, followed by Hope College (85) and Lake Superior State University (110). MCC beat out Rochester Christian (407) and Grace Christian University (438). 

Results from MCC’s other runners are as follows:  

• Freshman Mackenzie Zahm (Belding, Mich.), 21:26.04 (92nd) 

• Freshman Mickiah Allbee (Vestaburg, Mich.), 21:49.00 (105th) 

• Hannah Reed (Cedar Springs, Mich.), 22:19.34 (112th) 

• Joslyn Dickman (Alma, Mich.), 23:29.71 (130th) 

• Lilyanrose Martin (Ionia, Mich.), 24:28.24 (138th) 

MCC’s lone male runner, Keegan Shafer (Vestaburg, Mich.) did not compete due to an illness. 

Davis was coming off a first-place finish at the MCCAA Northern Conference meet, held Sept. 26, but MCC head coach Nathan “Q” Van Holten knew she and the rest of her Centurions team were going up against some highly competitive runners. 

“Abby, overall, did pretty well,” Van Holten said. “She gets kind of nervous at big meets, but she did well.” 

Van Holten said the rest of the team performed well as each runner is still working on confidence and trusting their training. 

Davis said the competition level of the race was much harder than she anticipated.  

“Once I realized there were some extra girls at the top, I was a little scared of where I belonged in the race,” she said. “But then I decided to focus more on myself.” 

Van Holten was surprised with the number of highly talented runners at the Jayhawk Invitational, as he was not expecting Wayne State to bring its top runners, stating he thought their B team would be competing in this meet, thus adding more competitive runners than he was thinking. There were also top high school runners (ones unattached to teams) who competed, which Jones was, hailing from Saline High School (Mich.).  

With Davis’ talent, Van Holten is confident she can compete for first place in any NJCAA meet. His strategy for her in the Jayhawk race was similar to the one he had for her in the previous meet where she took first place — to stick behind the lead runner for a mile and then build up confidence to overtake her at the end. However, competition was obviously much more abundant this time. 

“I told her it was going to be a much faster course,” Van Holten said. “And it was.” 

Davis agreed. 

“The hardest thing about this race would have been the course. It was a lot harder than I expected with the slippery hills,” Davis said.  

Though she expected to place higher, Davis said she wasn’t all that upset with how she finished, especially considering it was a personal record for her. 

“Finishing eighth definitely did not satisfy me with my performance,” she said. “But considering there was more competition than what I anticipated and that I still ran my fastest college time, I can’t be totally mad at myself for that. 

“From this last race, I learned not to let my expectations about the course or the competition get ahead of me,” she added. “When a race doesn’t go how I expected, I need to learn how to adapt to the conditions as it’s happening.” 

With the MCCAA Region 12 Championship coming up (Friday, Oct. 24), Van Holten said Davis and her teammates will need to learn how to handle bigger races. 

“Abby is slowly handling the bigger meets a little better,” Van Holten said. “She’s beginning to trust her own abilities.” 

Davis is hoping to put the knowledge she learned from the Jayhawk Invitational to work in the MCCAA regional meet. 

“Individually, I am hoping whatever conditions get thrown at me I can quickly adapt to still get a good performance in,” she said. “As a team, we need to push through as best as we can. I hope everyone can recover from sickness and injuries before this regional meet.” 

UP NEXT: The Michigan Community College Athletics Association Region 12 Championship will be held at Goodells County Park in Goodells, Mich, Friday, Oct. 24, with the men’s race starting at 12 noon, followed by the women’s race at 1 p.m.