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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Recapping the women's Spring Series: Theta leads the pack

Theta Cycling had to have a disastrous final day of Spring Series to lose its lead. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the team took fifth place in the final event, Team Pursuit, to take the crown.

Theta’s Abby Rogers said it’s exciting to be on top, but the real test is yet to come.

“For us, it is 100 percent a team thing,” she said. “Yes, some of the events are individual, but the race itself, where it really counts, is a year-round team effort — on and off the bike.”

Theta took a commanding lead after placing three riders in the top eight of Individual Time Trials. Liz Lieberman was ITTs Champion, followed by rookie Evelyn Malcomb in fourth and Rogers in eighth.

Lieberman then swept the first two series events with a win in Miss -N-Outs.

Both Lieberman and Rogers are veterans, while Malcomb and the team’s fourth rider, Maddie Lambert, are competing for the first time.

“Evelyn and Maddie both have been so influential in our success thus far,” Rogers said. “This comes from our team dynamic and the fact that they both hold themselves to standards higher than that of many other rookies and ?even veterans.”

Ski took the Team Pursuit crown easily to close out the Spring Series.

In Team Pursuit, every team gets one preliminary run, and the top two times make the finals. Ski qualified for the final race with a first-place time of 8:16.08, more than eight seconds faster than second-place Alpha Chi Omega.

The top two teams faced off at the end of the night. Ski shaved six more seconds off an already impressive time, going 8:10.01 to become Team Pursuit Champion.

Megan Huibregtse said they went into the finals just wanting the same race they had the first time out.

“I think we were just so excited,” Ski rider Ashley King said. “We were cooled down, the wind died down. It was a fast track. We just had it in our legs. The base miles and all the training we’ve done, we just had it in us.”

Previously, Teter had won Team Pursuit for five consecutive years, including six of the last seven. They made a run for a sixth-straight crown but fell just short of the finals in third place overall.

Because Theta is the defending Little 500 Champion and will be wearing the yellow jersey, there won’t a white jersey in this year’s race April 24. Theta finished well ahead of the competition with 41 points in the Spring Series. Delta Gamma just beat out Ski, 86 points to 87.

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