Andrea Grove-McDonough is entering her seventh season leading the cross country and track & field programs at UT. The women's cross country program has won four-straight MAC Championships while the men's team earned its first-ever crown last season. The women's team welcomes eight newcomers to the fold, including four freshmen and four transfers. The men's program brings in one transfer and one freshman.

What stands out to you in the first week of training with the team?

Grove-McDonough: I think the level of calmness stands out. We've had a lot of transition in the last year. A lot of upperclassmen who had been with the program a long time, or were just really dominant student-athletes like Laura Nicholson, Lou Trois and Emily Vining, have all graduated. That group of women were not only vocal leaders, but leaders in other ways too. Having that switch-over as they all graduated and moved on, all at the same time, I thought was going to leave a bigger void. There are a lot of new faces between our freshmen and incoming transfers so I really wasn't sure how that transition would look. It's been really smooth and calm. At first it was a bit unnerving, but this group has been calm and composed. They are sliding into place seamlessly.

Who are the student-athletes, newcomers or returners, that have stepped up so far?

Grove-McDonough: Melody Jebiwot had a phenomenal summer and has showed up on campus like a new athlete. She faced a little bit of injury and, in turn, some fitness issues last year. She came along right in time for the 2025 MAC Outdoor Championship and took third in the 10,000m which we were really excited about because she had been struggling during the season. She has really built on that momentum. She has stayed consistent and diligent and just showed up. She looks phenomenal and is training at a much higher level than she's been at in her previous years on campus.

Hannah Ielfield is a transfer who came to us from Ole Miss. She's going to be a great addition to our team. She's had a great summer – she's fit and has a ton of high-level experience from racing in the SEC. She certainly knows what that looks like and feels like.

We have a number of returners who have just built on their momentum from their great 2025 outdoor track & field seasons, including Bailey Ranta, Alex Bauer and Karina James. Bailey has faced some setbacks throughout her time here, but she is currently at the best I have ever seen her. She is on another fitness level.

We also have freshman Lilly DiCola who showed up on campus, had a great beginning of training and surprised me a bit. She was a great runner in high school. She was a Pennsylvania State Champion and a Foot Locker National Championship Finalist so she is very accomplished. However, the transition from high school competition to college competition is pretty big and she has looked great in our first few weeks of training.

You added two new members to your coaching staff, Louis Vazquez and Ronnie Brandal. What will they bring to the program?

Grove-McDonough: Ronnie Brandal joined the staff as an assistant coach. What's great about Ronnie is that he's been immersed in the MAC. He was a student-athlete at Eastern Michigan, so he totally understands the ins-and-outs of the conference. He's one of those great stories of someone who wasn't highly recruited out of high school, but really worked hard and progressed through college to the point where he was competing for a conference championship and qualifying for the NCAA First Round by his senior year. He then spent a year on staff at Eastern Michigan, which gave him all the tools and understanding of what we're trying to do. Frankly, he was excited about joining our staff. He's seen our program and what we've accomplished the last few seasons. I'm excited to have him on our team, he brings a great understanding of the competition and the conference.

Louis Vazquez was named the Associate Head Coach of our cross country and track & field programs and will be coaching our men's team. He has been at a number of different programs, which is great. He started as a student-athlete and then transitioned to a manager/volunteer coaching role at Villanova under a hall of fame coach, Marcus O'Sullivan, who has been successful for almost 30 years. Then he transitioned to Ole Miss and worked under Ryan Van Hoy, who has been one of the most accomplished young coaches in the NCAA for the last five to seven years. Louis then went to UMass-Lowell and worked under another great coach. I loved that he had some mid-major experience and helped lead teams to conference championships. Then, he went back to Ole Miss for a couple of years. Louis obviously knows what good running looks like. The SEC is as good as it gets with distance competition. I'm excited about all of the experiences he brings to our program and look forward to his first season with the Rockets.

You consistently compete in highly competitive events with a deep national field. Why?

Grove-McDonough: It's really simple. That's the level where we're trying to compete. We want to continue to elevate our program, not only to where we're in the conversation to make the NCAA National Championship meet, so we're always looking to compete against the best competition possible. It can be scary to tee up against those nationally ranked and recognized programs. For example, the first big meet on our 2025 schedule is the Loyola Lakefront Invitational. The field for that event gets better every single year. This year it is not only incredibly top heavy with some of the top-five teams in the NCAA but with depth. A majority of the teams that we will see competing at the National Championship will be running at Loyola and at Nuttycombe (Wisconsin) in October. We are just diving into the deep end straight from the get-go.

Our women's team lost five of our top seven runners from a season ago, including our top-three runners and a conference and regional individual champion. For us to still feel like we can put the pieces together and stay competitive in these competitions says a lot about the way we operate.

The women's cross country team has won four-straight MAC Championships and the men's program earned its first-ever crown in 2024. How do you keep the standard of excellence so high?

Grove-McDonough: It's about expectation and culture. I know that sometimes those phrases can be overused and oversimplified, but we do the hard work everyday, all the time to make sure our culture is where it's at. The expectations for our program have never felt like a burden and never felt like pressure. I know that both the men and women feel that pressure, particularly on the women's side, because now it's been four years in a row that we've won the MAC and we certainly understand that we have a target on our back, as we should. This year for example, the teams that finished second and fourth in the MAC Championship return their entire lineups. So, in theory, it's really a rebuild for us. Not that I see it that way. Competitors in the conference might feel like this is the year to knock us off, but anyone within our locker room does not see it that way at all. We take nothing for granted and we know we might be underdogs. At our first meeting, I said, "Right now today, our team, we are champions. Not metaphorically, literally. When you arrive at the conference championship, you are champions. How you leave there, is up to you." It's in their hands and I think they take that seriously.

We talk a lot about the hard work that was done before them, the women and men of the program who have brought it to where it is today. They really battled for respect and believed and bought into the things that my staff and I said we were going to do when I first arrived on campus. Those student-athletes just gave so much of themselves to help us get to where we are today. We talk a lot about having respect for those that came before you and how we do that is by trying to honor their legacy. We do that by not dropping the baton, metaphorically. It's time for the current student-athletes to carry on the tradition of winning. For some that might feel like a burden or pressure. But the student-athletes who choose Toledo are excited about that and feel a sense of responsibility.

What will it take to sweep the MAC Championships for a second-straight season?

Grove-McDonough: For the women, our competitors are returning most of their lineups and they know each other. For us, it's a completely different scenario because we are a different team. It's how well these student-athletes can gel and work together. I think our depth is much better and we are much closer spread and tighter pack as we run, which is the superpower of this program. We have a lot of depth.

On the men's side, I think it is going to be trickier. Some of the conference competition brings back talented teams. However, this group of men has trained harder over the summer than ever before. They're putting in tons of miles. They are extremely committed to competing to win the MAC again but also look to make a bigger splash at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional. They have absolutely put in the work and I feel great about that.

What are you most looking forward to during this upcoming cross country season?

Grove-McDonough: I think it's exciting to have some unknowns. To be honest, last year I was incredibly confident in our group of women. Not just that we could win our conference -- we were going to win. I believed strongly that if our program just did our job, we would win and advance to the NCAA's and we did. This year, I'm looking at it as something fun, it sort of feels like we get to be underdogs again. We feel freer, in a way. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. With all that said, I still expect to win again. The mark of our program, and any great program, is that we'll figure it out. At the very least I know this: We will be in the hunt and we'll be very hard to beat.