Northern Michigan University’s Madi Szymanski leads the field in the collegiate part of the Wildcat Open cross country meet held on campus in Marquette on Aug. 22. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — If this was an actual cross country running race, the Northern Michigan University women’s team might be getting jostled from all sides at the finish line.

That’s because the Wildcats are picked to finish exactly in the middle of a crowded pack in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, sixth place out of 11 teams, five teams ahead of them and five behind.

That’s a slight improvement over NMU’s seventh-place finish at the GLIAC Championships last October in Big Rapids, though it was a strong seventh — while finishing more than a hundred points ahead of the first team behind them, eighth-place Davenport, Northern scored just 18 points worse than the team three spots ahead of them, fourth-place Saginaw Valley State.

The now-departed Gianna Hoving led the Wildcats with a 10th-place finish in 21 minutes, 44.2 seconds, slightly under a minute behind race winner Lauren Kiley of Grand Valley State in 20:46.2.

None of the teams in the league was picked further than one spot away from where they finished at the conference meet.

That definitely includes league champion Grand Valley, which ran away with the GLIAC Championships title last fall with 23 points compared to 84 for runner-up Wayne State.

The Lakers — the Grand Valley ones who share their nickname with two other league schools — are actually a unanimous No. 1 pick again this fall, getting 10 of 11 first-place votes. They’re unanimous because each coach votes for all the teams but their own, meaning GVSU’s coach would’ve had to vote for someone else as their No. 1 choice.

It would’ve been a monumental leap of faith to not pick GVSU, considering these Lakers have won the GLIAC title an amazing 25 consecutive years.

Last year’s third-place team, Wisconsin-Parkside, picked up the other first-place vote and finished second with 84 polling points, just ahead of Wayne State with 80.

SVSU held its fourth-place spot from last fall, as did Michigan Tech at No. 5.

With NMU bumping up a spot from seventh to sixth, Ferris did the opposite from sixth to seventh.

Davenport kept its eighth-place position, while Lake Superior State moved up a spot to ninth and Purdue Northwest down a position to 10th. And Roosevelt kept its reservation in the last-place spot.

The Wildcats will be led this fall by 2023 All-GLIAC selection Madi Szymanski. The senior from Alpena broke out for Northern that fall, finishing eighth at the GLIAC Championships and 12th at the subsequent NCAA Division II regionals race.

She did so well at the regionals by breaking her personal record by nearly 40 seconds in 20:55.83, qualifying for the Division II national championships and placing 65th in a field of more than 260 runners from around the nation.

Unfortunately, Szymanski didn’t get a chance to follow it up in 2024, being sidelined most of the season with an injury.

Other NMU returnees include seniors Beverly Harper and Sophia Potter; juniors Lamar Gordon, Dani Van Lente and Emma Sweeney; and sophomores Celia Wallace, Lola Korpi and Brooke Lemos. Korpi is an Ishpeming High School graduate.

Among the five freshmen, the most promising are Ashley Choponis and Maija Maki-Warne, the latter a Marquette Senior High School graduate, while other local athletes on the team are Marquette freshmen Monet Argeropolous and Abby Harma.

The Wildcats have already participated in the exhibition Wildcat Invitational that featured a high school meet and a college race with only NMU runners. In that warmup, Szymanski paced the field in 18:34.8, about 15 seconds ahead of Choponis with Gordon another five-plus seconds back.

Northern will be mentored by 19th-year head coach Jenny Ryan, who says she excited for this group.

“Over the summer, the athletes did a really good job at training,” the coach said in an NMU Sports Information news release about the conference predictions. “The culture on the team is one of the best it’s ever been. This could be one of the best teams that I’ve ever had.”

The 26 members of the team open for real at the Phoenix Open hosted by Wisconsin-Green Bay in Green Bay, Wisconsin, at 12:30 p.m. EDT Saturday.

Another four meets held on Fridays and Saturdays lead up to the GLIAC Championships slated for Grand Rapids and hosted by Davenport on Saturday, Oct. 25.

Division II regionals and nationals follow on weekends in November.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the preseason poll. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.