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By Ryan Schlehuber, ���ϳԹ��� Sportswriter

With every new season comes new challenges for many competitive teams in sports.����

For the ���ϳԹ��� Centurions men and women’s cross country teams, it is no different, as they adjust not only to a new season and new runners, but also a new head coach.��

Nate “Q” Van Holten takes over the program, replacing Kevin Sweeney, who stepped down after last season. Van Holten has three runners on this year’s men’s team — Keegan Shafer (Vestaburg, Mich.), who is the lone returner, Gaven Cornell (Morley, Mich.) and Jayden Phillips (Big Rapids, Mich.). For the women’s team, Van Holten has a full team of seven runners, which includes one returner:����

• Sophomore Hannah Reed (Cedar Springs, Mich.)��

• Freshman Abigail “Abby” Davis (Vestaburg, Mich.)��

• Freshman Mickiah Allbee (Vestaburg, Mich.)��

• Freshman Joslyn Dickman (Alma, Mich.)��

• Freshman Karly Fisk (Sand Lake, Mich.)��

• Freshman Lilyanrose Martin (Ionia, Mich.)��

• Freshman Mackenzie Zahm (Belding, Mich.)��

The Centurions started off their season at the Grand Rapids Community College Invitation held at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Friday, Sept. 5. Montcalm competed with GRCC, Saint Mary’s (Ind.) and Grace Christian University.����

For the women’s team, Davis took first place individually in the 5K race, finishing with a time of 19 minutes, 21.1 seconds, beating out Saint Mary’s Jordan Siminski, who finished at 19:39.7 and Savannah Paulson, also of Saint Mary’s, who finished with a time of 19:53.9.��

On the men’s side in the 8K race, scoring only individually, Shafer finished 15th with a time of 32:31.7 while Phillips placed 24th with a time of 55:16.7.��

Davis was recruited by Sweeney and had already been on the team when Van Holten took over as coach. Van Holten was looking forward to working with her.��

“I’d say she was a semi-key piece of me wanting to pursue the job,” Van Holten said. “If we can build around her, we could be pretty solid.”��

Allbee finished in 18th place with a time of 21:58.5, followed by Dickman and Reed, who finished 22nd (22:52.3) and 23rd (22:57.5), respectively. Fisk finished with a time of 24:25.3 (30th) and Martin rounded out the team with a time of 25:13.2 (32nd).����

Van Holten praised Davis’ strong finish but has been more impressed with her approach to the sport in general.��

“She’s done everything I’ve asked,” Van Holten said. “Sometimes, you get people who are successful in high school and they are a little bullish coming into a college program as they sometimes are overly confident, they know what they’re doing. But she’s never been resistant to anything and I appreciate that.”��

Davis, a state finalist in track and cross country in high school, said she prepared herself well in advance, both physically and mentally, for her first collegiate race.��

“I knew before going into the race that it was my first college meet and that I had good summer training prior,” she said. “I knew this invite was going to be one of our smaller races of the season and I felt confident seeing the times of my competition prior to racing.”��

Through practice and especially after this past meet, Van Holten knows he has to work on building up the confidence in each of his female runners, many of them new to the sport, while keeping his three male runners in a mindset of improving themselves and laying a foundation for future men’s teams at ���ϳԹ��� to succeed.��

Freshman runners Cornell and Phillips are new to the sport, as well.��

“With the men, it’s challenging to them because when you’re trying to get through a race and you’re hurting, you have a team you know you can’t let down. That motivates you to not quit,” Van Holten said. “When it’s just a couple of them, I have to encourage them to keep working to be the best they can so they can build something for the next group.”��

For the women’s team, Van Holten said it’s mostly trying to establish a positive mindset and getting some runners up to speed on the foundation of the sport, including the lingo within the sport.��

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. “A lot of people just say, ‘run fast as you can,’ and that’s it. That’s the simplistic approach. But a lot of it is thinking through things.”��

Van Holten has had to adjust his approach to coaching to make sure his new runners don’t fall behind and to reinforce positivity within them as he believes many of them don’t have the right mindset going into practice or a race.����

“Some of them I’ve heard them saying there’s no way they can make this time or that time,” Van Holten said. “They question their abilities, but I tell them to look at what they’ve already accomplished, look at their numbers and then I showed them numbers from other teams. Then they finally agree with me that they can compete with them. We just need to get better with our positive attitude.”��

Van Holten said most runners aim to beat their personal records, both season and career, which is always a great motivator. However, he said with newer runners, they sometimes feel they have the whole season to ramp up to a good finish. Van Holten, however, is working to convince them they can meet those expectations now and not at the end of the season.��

“Sometimes, runners’ visions are limited,” he said. “When you have a runner beat their PR (personal record) by 30 seconds, they sometimes don’t realize they can probably improve by another two minutes. When you get them to realize that, it’s a new level of self-improvement. We are working through those things.”��

The Centurions travel to the east side of the state to compete in the Wayne State Warrior Challenge at Willow Metropark in New Boston on Friday, Sept. 12, with the women’s 6K race beginning at 5 p.m., followed by the men’s 8K race at 5:45 p.m.��

Van Holten said this meet will likely be the most competitive meet of the year.��

“There will be lots of competition,” Van Holten said. “Most meets are smaller junior college meets, but this one is more high-end.��

Van Holten is looking forward to seeing how Davis stacks up to the competition.����

“This is a great opportunity for Abby to show her skills, but it will help the rest of the team, as well, with her being up front with the pack.”��