Freshman Marley Crusch awoke last Saturday morning to her typical pre-race meal of eggs and honey in preparation for the Iowa Intercollegiate cross country meet in Ames.

Little did she know, her performance in the meet would be her ticket to run with the best of the best in the cardinal and gold.

Crusch finished the 5,000-meter race in fourth place overall with a time of 18:47. As a true freshman, she was required to run the race unattached — meaning she couldn’t show any affiliation to Iowa State.

After her finish at the home meet, head coach Corey Ihmels gave Crusch the nod by adding her to the roster that will be running at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis this Saturday.

“I’m excited about it,” Crusch said. “It’s a huge race and everybody is making a big deal of it, so that in itself is exciting.”

Although she was not highly recruited coming out of high school, Crusch narrowed her main two college choices to Kansas and Iowa State.

“I hadn’t even really heard of Iowa State,” Crusch said. “It’s kind of embarrassing to say. I was looking at colleges, applied to quite a few and then I was narrowing them down as I went, mostly by athletic criteria.”

Crusch enjoyed her visit to Kansas, but when she visited Iowa State, the two didn’t compare.

“Even though my mom was totally not impressed [with Iowa State], I just fell in love with the team,” Crusch said. “I think that really made the difference for me.”

Although she played basketball in high school, Crusch focused her high school athletic career on running.

Her experiences running competitively in high school have made her the athlete she is today.

With her experience and athletic ability, Crusch has been able to fit in and bond very well with the team.

“I really enjoy the team environment here,” Crusch said. “That’s why I picked [to go] here, obviously. [The team is] so much closer than [in] high school and everybody’s got the same goal, and that really makes a difference.”

Crusch will be joining fellow true freshman Taylor Peterson on the roster to run at this weekend’s Roy Griak Invitational.

“I feel really honored,” Crusch said. “I feel really lucky that I’m getting this chance because it’s not something everybody gets in their lifetime, and to come into it as just a true freshman is really exciting.”