Wolverine Women Earn USTFCCCA All-Academic Awards
By Mason Fleischauer
NEW ORLEANS, La. — Four members of the University of Michigan women’s cross country team earned U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division I All-Academic honors, the association announced Thursday (Jan. 27). The Wolverine women were also honored as a team for the 11th consecutive year.
Top-100 NCAA Cross Country Championships finishers Kayla Windemuller and Katelynne Hart led the way for the group that also included Ericka VanderLende and Samantha Tran. All four individuals have received this award previously, with VanderLende bringing it home for the third straight season.
Hart, a sophomore who has not yet declared a major, was Michigan’s top finisher at cross country nationals, finishing in 69th place.
Windemuller, a senior applied exercise science major, finished 79th at nationals, coming in as the Wolverines’ No. 2 runner. She also earned All-Big Ten honors.
VanderLende, a junior studying applied exercise science, was the individual Big Ten runner up at the conference cross country meet in 2021. She also placed 108th at the 2021 NCAA Cross Country Championships, coming in as the Wolverines’ No. 3 runner.
A second-year competitor studying movement science, Tran placed 179th at the national meet in 2021 as the No. 4 finisher for Michigan.
Each woman earned this distinction by virtue of carrying a cumulative grade-point average greater than 3.25 and earning All-Region honors at the 2021 Great Lakes Regional cross country meet.
They were among 114 female student-athletes from NCAA Division I institutions across the country to be recognized with this award.
To qualify as a USTFCCCA All-Academic Cross Country team, the team must have had a cumulative team grade-point average of 3.00 — a threshold head coach Mike McGuire‘s teams have met in each of the past 11 seasons.
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