Freshman makes her mark

When one enters her freshman collegiate cross country season after winning the 1,600 meter run in the Illinois High School State Track Championship and earning All-State honors in track all four years of high school, that freshman is expected to make an instant impact in college.\n"She is one of the best girls in Illinois and in this country," IU women's cross country coach Judy Wilson said.\nAt the halfway point in the 2003 season, freshman Kristin Whitezell has already made a statement by finishing fourth for the Hoosiers in her first two meets and third in her most recent meet, running 22:24, in the six kilometer Roy Griak Invitational in Minnesota. In her first meet on Aug. 30 in the Indiana Open, Whitezell ran a five kilometer 19:00.61, and in her second meet on Sept. 19 in the Indiana Intercollegiates, Whitezell improved her 5k time to 18:33. She said she would like to see herself as consistently contributing to the Hoosiers as the No. 4 runner.\n"In order to help our team succeed, the whole pack of teammates that I race with, (junior) Julie Shields, (sophomores) Kelly Siefker, and Larra Overton, and I will have to work on closing the gap between us and our (No.) 1, 2, 3 runners so that our split between our (No.) 1 to 5 is smaller, making it harder to beat us," Whitezell said. "By moving up our pack, we will be able to be ahead of the packs of other teams as well.\nIn addition to owning the title of state champion in the 1600-meter run, Whitezell graduated fifth in her high school class of 711 students and was a member of the 2003 Illinois High School Association Academic All-State Team. She also holds the Glenbard North High School's record in the three-mile run with a time of 17:37. Whitezell said her experience from running in big meets during high school have helped in her quick transition to collegiate running.\n"Every meet we run in at college is like the high school state meet," Whitezell said. "So having run in those meets helped me get used to big pressure situations and racing your best all the time."\nWhitezell said she got her start in running in the seventh grade with track, then began cross country in eighth grade, and continued through high school. Around her junior year, Whitezell said she began thinking about running in college. Whitezell said that the main difference between racing in high school and college is the fact that the competition level is so much greater in college.\n"Practically everyone you are racing against was all-state in their respective area and there are a lot of state champions out there in the field as well," Whitezell said. "In college, it comes down to who has worked the hardest, who wants it the most and who is the toughest."\nWilson said Whitezell is where she expected her to be on the team and can only improve from there.\n"I think with each race she will kind of figure this out and put herself up in there where she needs to be and kind of race with people she needs to race with," Wilson said. "And I don't think she has done that yet."\n-- Contact staff writer Steve Slivka at smslivka@indiana.edu.