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Lauren Denfeld
03/07/2012 Unleashed: Megan Goethals Is At Peace. Finally.Fourteen months after a psychiatrist was preparing her to end her track career because 03/22/2012 Dive into the middle of the Flotrack Husky ClassicHighlights from the 2012 Flotrack Husky Classic in the Dempsey Indoor. Lauren Denfeld heads into her second season on the Washington staff, joining the Huskies from Oregon State where she helped revitalize the Beavers program as a student-athlete and a coach. Denfeld works with Washington head coach Greg Metcalf and associate head coach Jason Drake to mentor the Husky distance runners. Denfeld's second season began with the Husky women's cross country team returning to the podium, as Washington took second at the 2011 NCAA Championships, narrowly missing the program's second national title. Katie Flood won the inaugural Pac-12 Championship individual title, and she went on to place seventh at NCAAs with Megan Goethals placing 18th as each earned All-America honors. UW also won its fourth straight NCAA West Region title. In Denfeld's first season on staff in 2010-11, the women's cross country team won West Regionals and finished 16th at the NCAA Championships. Freshmen Katie Flood and Megan Goethals both qualified for the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Track Championships, earning All-American honors indoors in the 3k and outdoors in the 1500m (Flood) and 5000m (Goethals). A native of Bend, Oregon, Denfeld was one of the original members of the women's track and cross country program when it was reinstated in 2004. She became just the second runner in the modern era of Oregon State track to qualify for the NCAA West Regional Championships, where she ran in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 2007 and 2008. Denfeld was then brought back on the OSU bandwagon in August 2009 by head coach Kelly Sullivan, to help continue the program's progress. Last season with Denfeld in the fold, the OSU women's cross country squad finished ninth at the West Regional Championships, matching the program's best finish since reinstatement. Four Beavers advanced to the NCAA Preliminary Rounds on the track with freshman Sandra Martinez placing 18th in the 5,000-meter run and sophomore Casey Masterson taking 23rd at 1,500-meters. During her time as a student-athlete at Oregon State, Denfeld set the school record for the 3,000-meter steeplechase, breaking it several times, before registering the final mark of 10:38.28 in her final season. Not only does she hold the record, she was also the first woman to ever compete in the event in school history during her rookie season in 2005. She also holds the school record for the 2,000-meter steeplechase. In the classroom, Denfeld earned the program's first CoSIDA Academic All-District 8 Second Team honor, as well as multiple Pac-10 All-Academic First Team awards for track. She also was a recipient of a Pac-10 Postgraduate Scholarship. Denfeld graduated from Oregon State in 2008, earning her bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a focus in marketing and a minor in Spanish. |
