DETROIT (11/5/2020) -- In the history of University of Detroit Mercy athletics, there have been a few programs that have made quite a splash early on in their existence.

The U-D women's basketball teams were very dominant in their first five years. The men's lacrosse team won a title in its fifth year as a program and the women's golf team began a dynasty in its sixth season.

For the women's cross country teams of the mid-1980s, it was in just the third year as a varsity program before the Titans broke through with back-to-back team championships in 1986 and 1987 and individually had a pair of runner-up finishes from Titans in both races and a gold medal winner. 

"It was a tremendous weekend for Detroit Mercy and just our entire program," said former Titan cross country coach Kevin Donner. "It was the first year we were in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (MCC) after leaving the North Star Conference, which was almost the same schools. For two years, we had our growing pains just starting a program, but we had everyone back from the season before and we picked up a couple of good recruits, a couple of junior college kids and all of a sudden, we were a good veteran team despite being in our third year."

The 1986 season didn't start as planned. The leading returning runner in junior Bonnie Fitzpatrick, a two-time All-NSC runner, was hurt and missed some races. Also dealing with injuries early on were senior Lisa Bagdady and sophomores Sue Willey and Joanne Warren.

The team did bring in a pair of junior college standouts in Renee DeChambeau and Nancy Mandziara to go with returning members in juniors Louise Shaheen and Michelle Vogt, sophomores Lisa Forner, Annmarie Pinarski and Jean Wyckoff and freshmen Jennifer Hitzges and Kim Moffatt. 

"We felt that Nancy and Renee coming in would really solidify our team," said Donner. "Bonnie was hurt earlier in the year and wasn't able to train much and she was just starting to round into form when the (MCC) meet happened and was a tremendous runner to have finish sixth, but we felt like we had a nice pack all year long with a lot of the team and in that race. We had Michelle Vogt and Louise Shaheen also in the top five and everyone was a junior, which really set us up for the next season as well."
 

"I was coming off a stress fracture and it was a little disappointing for me individually, but I was very hopeful that the team could go out there and perform at a high level," said Titan Hall-of-Famer Bonnie Wood (Fitzpatrick). We knew we were a good team and everyone had to step up with some of the injuries and that hunger to win was a driving force for us. We were very competitive as a team and we all understood it was business when it came to the races, but the team cohesiveness that we had was huge."

The Titans started the year by taking fifth out of seven teams at the Hillsdale Invitational as Mandziara was the top harrier finishing 10th in the 3.2 mile race. The next race saw them place 11th out of 25 teams at the 5k Midwest Invitational, but it also saw Loyola claim eighth with three runners in the top 30, where U-D's first runner was Vogt at 39th. At the 3.2 mile National Catholic Championships, the Titans were ninth, Loyola sixth, and this time DeChambeau was the top Titan runner taking 31st. 

The rest of the season saw the Titans beat Notre Dame in a dual at 3.2 miles and winning the 5k Siena Heights Invitational, a race that also featured an individual win for DeChambeau, before wrapping up the regular season with a split in a 5k tri-meet, defeating Toledo and falling to Miami (Ohio).

When the MCC Championships came around, the Titans knew that all the training they had done throughout the season was going to pay off in the 5-mile postseason. They did not fear the strong Loyola team and with health now starting to go in their favor, the making of a special weekend was starting to form. 

"Our main competition was Loyola," said Donner. "They had won the previous two North Star championships and were returning a lot of people and they had beat us at a couple of meets already on the year. But, I thought we had broken into them and we felt we had a really good chance at beating them. We were fired up when that weekend came around, we just felt like we could win and we won fairly easily with five of the top six runners."

"Coach thought we had a really good chance against Loyola, but we had to get out on the course and prove it that day," said Nancy Hanson (Mandziara). 

"We needed to all step up," said Michelle Kendell (Vogt). "We were used to Bonnie being the leader and it was comfortable for a lot of us that she was the leader, but she had to take care of her injuries as did some other girls and we needed to take the responsibility of stepping up and having Nancy and Renee coming in from Macomb Community College was also big for us and a big reason of why we won."

The championships were held at Butler University, a course that was set up well for the Titans. It was also set up well for everyone to see how the race went from start to finish. 

"I saw it developing throughout the race," said Donner. "The course at Butler was a loop course so a very good spectator course where you can really see the entire race in front of your eyes as a coach and a spectator. I remember some of the Loyola girls going out really fast and our girls sitting and just throughout the race, we kept moving up." 

Mandziara took the lead in the race early and led for much of the 5k event. She had a lot of help from her teammates as the pack picked up its pace with five Titan runners pushing to the front line. 

"It was pretty exciting. As a runner, you don't know really where your team is, you're just concentrating on yourself and doing the best you can and that will help the team. For us, we are competing, but we don't know the score as everything is going on," said Hanson. 

She would eventually get caught by Evansville's Kim Horvath and ended up taking runner-up in 18:52, just four seconds shy of the win. But she did start a run of red as DeChambeau ended in third, Vogt was fourth, Louise Shaheen fifth and Fitzpatrick sixth, giving the Titans five All-League honors. In 1987, when the red, and white defended its title, Mandziara was runner-up again, this time to teammate Fitzpatrick, which helped the team top Loyola again by a 22-33 edge. 

"As an individual, you want to put your best performance forward and that helps the entire team, in practice or competition," said Hanson. "I was happy with the runner-up, but I would say that when you're that close, of course you want the win too. But winning as a team, that is the overall goal to win as a team and winning the way we did was great."

"I knew when I crossed, that we had a good shot at winning just seeing who was ahead of me," said Wood. "You never want to jump the gun, but it was pretty exciting and I could see who was ahead of me and I was just trying to close the gap with the front runners as much as possible."

"It's really ironic," said Louise Seliger (Shaheen) to the Varsity News following the race. "We've been talking all season about breaking up their top three to be competitive and here we ended up placing five runners ahead of their top one."

When it was over, the Titans captured their first championship by 45 points, totaling 20 with Loyola placing second at 65. 
 

"I knew with a good 1,000 meters to go that barring a disaster, we were winning," said Donner. "We wanted to stay together as a pack and move up and all five of the girls ran super that day and we were so excited. I would have never of thought that winning a championship in our third year was possible. Loyola was our main obstacle, but we were getting healthier throughout the year and as it turned out, we won fairly easily."

"We were only around for three years as a cross country team. There was no history to live up to, but building new ground at the University was exciting," added Kendell. 

It was just 1984 when the Titans started their cross country program, giving the team a win in just its third year. For coach Donner, he had just graduated in 1984 when he was handed the reigns to start and build a program and while he was just trying to figure out the coaching profession himself, he had a knack for motivating his team. 

"Coach Donner just had a way of getting us to peak at the right time," said Wood. "We worked together and everyone pumped each other up to help train and make each other better. He was very good at motivating in subtle ways and we were prepared for the race."

When the team won, everyone was excited just to take home the trophy, but it wouldn't be until later on in life when they truly realized how special that title was. 

"It is pretty amazing to think back now and see that you were a part of history as one of the first championships," said Hanson. "I don't know how much I thought about it at the time. We were a close-knit group that worked well together, we loved being around each other and we definitely have had a long friendship after it was over."

"We were so excited," said Kendell. "To be on the podium at the awards ceremony was special. We all felt great for each other and just to come together and do what we did was great. It took maturity to look back and see how special that win was. When you're young, you feel good right in that moment, but to look back now and realize you were part of the first championship in such a young program is special and something to be proud of."