Allie Ostrander and Anna Rohrer Lead a Very Talented Group of Freshmen

Published by Adam Schneider/RunnerSpace.com on November 18, 2015

In 2014 we saw two great girls high school cross country championship races. The winners, Allie Ostrander and Anna Rohrer, did not have dominating high school track resumes but instead a history of grit and determination that belies their success this year. 

Allie Ostrander was a runner in Alaska that was breaking junior mountain race course records and started to break the senior records by winning 6 races during the Mount Marathon Race in Alaska her senior year. In her first big national outdoor race her junior season she fell well back of Hannah Debalsi at New Balance Nationals 2 mile and was out-kicked at the finish for second, where she finished fifth in 10:28.78. 

Early in her last high school season the only competition the eventual Alaska 4A champion had on the high school cross country circuit, eventual 123A Alaska state champion Briahna Gerlach, could not get within 80 seconds of her. She did not win the Nike northwest race in icy conditions and some did not consider her the favorite at the Nike national meet. She took off with the title on a new, hilly course at Nike cross country nationals. She did not leave the state for another race that season but she did run the second fastest time in the country in the 3200m (9:58.74) at the Alaska Region III championship.

Indiana’s Anna Rohrer burst on the national scene as a sophomore with a win at the 2012 Foot Locker Championships after winning the Indiana state title. The Mishawkawa native (near Notre Dame University) beat now-Providence all-American Catarina Rocha, 17:24.8 to 17:29.0 for that title. She won a state 3200m (10:20.68, #13 US) title outdoors but missed most of the next cross country season after breaking the navicular bone in her left foot (she broke the same bone in her right foot during her freshman year). Outdoors she won another state 3200m title (10:14.43) and followed that with a New Balance outdoors 5000m title (16:16.97) that gave her the US high school leader. 

In her senior season she started late and ended up with another Indiana title and won Foot Locker (17:13) again, this time over Ryen Frazier (17:23), Makena Morley (17:29), and Paige Hofstad (17:33). Indoors she set a national record in beating Ryen Frazier over 5000m (16:10.79) at the New Balance Nationals. Outdoors she won her first Indiana state 1600m (4:52.09) to go with her third 3200m (10:11.20, #7 US hs) title. She finished her season with a Brooks 2-mile title in 9:59.96, on the all-time national list. 

Ostrander chose to go to college at Boise State (over Oregon) and used the summer to up her mileage from 40-50 miles per week to 60 miles per week. On September 19th Allie Ostrander finished 1st in the 4.7k World junior mountain racing championship in 19:44, :38 ahead of Michaela Stranska of Czech Republic. In college she moved from running with high school boys to working with strong female teammates on Boise State. At Boise State she joined a very successful coach.

Boise State head coach Corey Ihmels came from Iowa State after 11 years where he coached NCAA champions and international championship competitors Lisa Koll (Uhl) in the 2012 Olympics and Betsy Saina in the world championships. In his first year (2013-2014) at Boise State he guided Emma Bates to an NCAA champion over 10,000m. 

He likes to claim “I am not the smartest coach.” At the same time he has developed top level runners and has taken great lessons from his past experience. He worked for Michigan State’s head coach Walt Drenth when Coach Drenth was at Arizona State.  There Ihmels learned, “with Walt Drenth, don’t handicap the women because they are women. The men run 10 and so can women.  That mentality has changed.”

When Allie came in, Coach Ihmels recognized she came in at a top level. She had “tough challenging training at a really high level and she is obvious really talented physically. She is very sound.”  

When I asked his opinion why high school athletes have been so good the last few years (see also Mary Cain and Alexa Ephraimson) he said, “it’s a trickle-down affect from the successes of Huddle, Flanagan, Barringer, and now Infeld. These ladies have had success the last 5–10 years and young ladies are watching that. You turn the corner and this is the group that has grown up watching that. In high school they unwound it. The US is catching up.” 

Anna Rohrer was awarded Gatorade 2014-2015 National cross country athlete of the year. She won two Footlocker titles, set a national indoor 5000m record and moved onto the all-time list outdoors in the two mile. She chose the nearby Notre Dame campus over such distance powers as Stanford and Providence. 

Notre Dames distance coach Matt Sparks told Rachel Terlep of The Elkhart Truth, “She just knows how to win, and that’s something that you can’t coach in someone,” he said. “She has the ability to read her body and know what she has left in the tank and how hard to push.”

Arkansas’ women’s head coach Lance Harter has some very good strategies for helping freshmen adjust and has had great success. “Each and every one is different. A lot of times the transition is based on workouts. I’ve built a relationship over the years with the coaches. I send a questionaire out to the coaches. ‘What would you do the next four years with them? What keeps them confident?’ We have incorporated some of their favorite workouts because we individualize so much. Then we draw comparisons for them. ‘You knocked that workout out of the park and look how you are doing now!’ It is tough for these kids living away from home with new roommates. Why not as a track coach minimize that adjustment?” 

Coach Harter has a runner he thinks is very special like Deena Drossin and Dominique Scott in freshman Devin Clark. Coach Harter says about her, “Devin Clark is a very, very special individual. She has all the gifts any coach would want. There are rare times in your life that you have a kid that has all the assets like Drossin, Scott, (Sarah) Schwald and (Amy) Yoder Begley.” 

Early this season Ostrander, Rohrer and North Carolina State freshman Frazier all impressed. Ostrander won a dual meet in California, the next week won the World junior mountain championship in Wales and the next week lost to all-American Bethan Knights at Roy Griak on September 26th. Rohrer won the National Catholic Invitational on September 18th. During September Frazier was collecting USTFCCCA.org national athlete-of-the-week awards. She won the Adidas Challenge 5000m in 16:06.4 and won against a deep field at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on October 2nd in 16:22.9 beating the tough group from #1 New Mexico and Notre Dame (Rohrer finished 8th in 16:46.8).  

After that loss at Roy Griak, Allie Ostrander has not lost since. Coach Ihmels told Gordon Mack of Flotrack that he put Ostrander through three race pace workouts to prepare her for Wisconsin Adidas and it worked. There was a pack of 13 at approximately 4000m with five from New Mexico, Rohrer’s teammate Molly Seidel, Dominique Scott of Arkansas, Frazier and her teammate Samantha George, Sarah Collins of Providence, Maggie Montoya of Baylor, Regan Rome of Williams and Mary and Margo Malone of Syracuse at between 13:24.4 (Seidel) and 13:26.2 (Rohrer). This group closed fast and Ostrander won in a course record 19:19.5, Seidel second in 19:22.4 and Scott was third in 19:32.5 with four of the New Mexico runners up next as Rohrer finished 12th in 19:56.9 and Frazier fell off the pace to finish 38th in 20:23.6. 

Coach Ihmels related about her, “she is very competitive and does not like to lose,” and “she is able to do some things aerobically that are pretty special.”  There was a lot of excitement about her performance but Coach Ihmels preaches caution. “The one thing is we don’t overdue it. My job is not to screw it up. We will take her through things. We are old school, ‘with an’ aerobic ‘focus’. There has been a lot of talk about records but that is not what we do. We are not concerned about the first year, more third and fourth. We can’t lose track of the 4-5 yr progression.” 

Two weeks later she won the Mountain West Conference title at 4500m altitude of Reno, Nevada in 21:50 and then won the West Region title in horrible mud, rain, and wind in 20:10.9. Two meets with competitors expected to finish in the top 10 at the NCAA meet. 

In Anna Rohrer’s conference (ACC in 20:08.3) and region (Great Lakes in 20:18.4) races she has only been beaten by her teammate, Molly Seidel. Frazier has struggled with the 6000m distance and followed the 38th place performance at Wisconsin Adidas with a fifth place (20:22.3) performance at ACC and 18th place (21:22.3) performance at the Southeast Regional. Devin Clark was second early on Dominique Scott at UC Riverside and Chili Pepper. She was 18th at Wisconsin Adidas and finished eighth at the SEC Championships.

Going into the NCAA championships Allie Ostrander is the favorite and Anna Rohrer could finish in the top 10. With a good performance Frazier and Clark could finish in the top 20 and Sharon Lokedi of Kansas (fourth at Pre-Nationals and third at the Midwest region) could join the other freshmen in the top 20. In the last eight years nine freshmen runners have finished in the top 14 and five in the top ten. This could be a great year for freshmen and an Ostrander win would be the first for a freshman since 1985.