Alumni Run the Distance

Submitted by Tim Potts, contributor

Photo: Madeleine Takahashi and Tera Potts (former Sturgis Scooper cross country

runners and team mates) finishing a 12 mile run on Saturday, December 24th

in preparation for the upcoming indoor college track season.

Madeleine Takahashi, former Sturgis Scooper has just completed her first

year of Cross Country running for the Mississippi State University Bull Dogs

and is now preparing for her first indoor / outdoor track season to begin.

MSU is located in eastern part of north-central Mississippi in the town of

Starkville, MS. Takahashi commented that the town is very supportive of

athletics and is a nice little town. Madeleine stated the weather has not

been hard to adjust to, although the average temperature in September was in

the 90's and it took a long time to get use to the extreme humidity.

Takahashi said she chose to attend MSU because of their enthusiasm to build

the cross country and distance track team and she feels she made a great

decision. The athletic program and cross country meets have exceeded her

expectations by the size of meets and quality of athletes. The MSU Cross

county team consists of 20 women athletes and nine are freshman.

Takahashi ran in five cross country races this year, and several highlights

included the 6K Sewanee Tennessee Invitational on September 3, 2011 where

she placed 9th with a personal best time of 22:43.91. MSU had 7 runners in

the top 9 place finishers to win the meet.

For her indoor season, Takahashi will run the 1600 and 3000 meter races and

will try to earn a position on the distance medley for MSU. Takahashi stated

that she is taking classes that center around a career in communications.

Tera Potts just completed her third cross country season and had an

outstanding year at South Dakota State University. Highlights include

running second for SDSU several times this season.

The first meet of the year was one of her personal bests coming in second

overall with a time of 18:56.16 at the Grand Forks Golf Course in North

Dakota. A season highlight was at the Summit League Championships in Tulsa,

Oklahoma where she placed 20th overall with a time of 22:54.82.

Potts is looking forward to the indoor season where she will run the 1600

and 3000 meter runs. The outdoor season starts in March where she looks

forward to running the 3000 meter steeplechase with hopes of improving her

third place finish in the Summit League conference last season.

Potts said she is studying for a career in nursing and hopes to further her

profession by becoming an anesthetist some day.