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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 11/17/2011 Third-Ranked Huskies Chase Podium SpotThe Husky women will aim for a fourth Top-10 finish in the last five years. 10/27/2011 First Pac-12 Titles On The Line In TempeThe Husky women have been in the top-four at 20 of the last 22 conference meets. 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 assistant Jason Drake to mentor the Husky distance runners. "We are incredibly excited to add Lauren Denfeld to our coaching staff," said Metcalf upon her hiring. "Lauren is the perfect fit for our program. She is a young, intelligent, ambitious, and hard-working young woman. Lauren is full of limitless potential and I am excited to watch her career grow from here. Her primary responsibility will be to work daily with our young athletes, and help to build our track and field program as a whole." In her first season on staff in 2010-11, the Husky women's cross country team captured its third straight NCAA West Region title 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. |
