NCAA Div I XC Championship
TERRE HAUTE(19-Nov) -- The coaches' pre-meet rankings held up as the top-ranked Oregon men and Stanford women won the team titles at today's NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships at Terre Haute's Laverne Gibson Championships Cross Country Course. Liberty's Josh McDougal took an exciting men's race over a dry course with temperatures in the upper 50s, while Texas Tech's Sally Kipyego successfully defended her crown in a mostly solo run.
Despite the near perfect racing conditions, the men's race sent out slowly with nearly everyone still in contention through 3 km in 8:57, and the halfway point in 15:09.
"I wasn't surprised that the race went out so slow," said McDougal after the race. "Two years under nearly identical conditions, the race went out slow."
McDougal, Oregon's Galen Rupp, and Northern Arizona's Lopez Lomong led the pack of nearly 20 runners as they made their way up the long slope just before 6 km.
McDougal started surging at 7 km, with Rupp and Lomong immediately covering the move. The trio pulled away from the field over the long uphill over the next 500 meters.
Rupp then surged off the top of the hill around 8 km, with McDougal holding on while Lomong began to lose contact.
McDougal moved again around 8500 meters and opened about ten meters over Rupp going into the final small loop. Rupp recovered however, and pulled himself even with McDougal as the duo entered the final 400-meter finishing straight.
McDougal and Rupp ran stride for stride for the next 200 meters, then McDougal ever-so-slowly began to edge ahead for good.
McDougal crossed the line with his arms raised in 29:23, with Rupp a mere second behind in 29:24.
"With 200 to go, Rupp started to tighten up a little," said McDougal. "I waited until I could feel the finish line before making my final effort. I just wanted it more."
Lomong rallied on the final stretch to capture the bronze in 29:46, with Villanova's Bobby Curtis a stride behind in 29:47. Colorado's Brent Vaughn finished fifth in 29:48.
The Oregon men went right to the front at the start.
"We had asked them to get out and be aggressive from the beginning," said Oregon mentor Vin Lananna. "You have to get out to win. It was important for us to establish an identity for Oregon cross country, whether we won or lost."
The Oregon men, led by Rupp's runner-up finish, maintained their lead to the finish to win the first NCAA title for the Ducks in 30 years. Oregon, which scored 85 points for the win, had previously won team titles in 1971, 1973, 1974, and 1977.
The Iona men claimed second with 113 points, while surprising Oklahoma State placed third with 180 points.
KIPYEGO TOO TOUGH TO BEAT IN WOMEN'S RACE
Although the top-two women's individuals ended up in the same finish order as in 2006, the women's race developed differently this year.
Last year, Kipyego sprinted to the fore at the gun and never looked back. This year, Kipyego was content to run most of the first mile with a lead pack of three others that included Colorado's Jenny Barringer, the 2006 runner-up, Florida State's Susan Kuijken, and Iowa's Diana Nukuri.
Kipyego started to edge ahead on a long downhill just past the mile passing the 2 km in 6:26. Barringer, Kuijken, and Nukuri were only a second behind at the split before the field made their way up the course's second long incline.
From that point on, Kipyego simply extended her lead over the chase pack -- passing 4 km in 13:01, 11 seconds ahead of Barringer, Kuijken, and Nukuri.
While Kipyego ran alone unchallenged up front, Barringer pulled away from Kuijken and Nukuri over the next kilo.
Kipyego, who started nursing school this fall at Texas Tech and had to balance her academic demands with her training to defend her title, won in a course-record 19:31.
"I wanted to start slow then build up over the course," said Kipyego after the race. "I raced Jenny a lot and I know she's really strong at the end."
Barringer cruised home in second, crossing the line in 19:48.
"I really wanted to go for the win; second isn't good enough for me. I wanted to risk it all for the win" said Barringer who goes by the nickname "Puddles." "I'm closing the gap. She's getting better, I'm getting better."
Kuijken pulled away from Nukuri over the final stretch to claim third, with the Florida State sophomore finishing in 19:58, her only cross country loss of the season, and the Iowa senior in 20:07. Michigan State's Nicole Bush finished fifth in 20:14.
The team race appeared over by the middle of the race, with two-time defending champion Stanford opening a huge lead in the team standings at both the 2 km and 4 km splits.
"We didn't want to do anything --for lack of a better phrase --"cute" or acrobatic," said coach Peter Tegen, who was celebrating his fifth team title-- two while at Wisconsin in 1984 and 1985, and two at Stanford in 2005 and 2006. "We knew all we needed to do was run. With a mile to go, we had the race sown up. Then lightning struck."
Teresa McWalters, who had appeared to be running comfortably with team leader Arianna Lambie midrace, began to struggle over the final kilometer and literally crawled across the finish line in 62nd place --losing dozens of places in the final stretch.
Still, the Cardinal was dominant enough to pull off the win with 145 points (Stanford won with an "NCAA record" high point total of 146 in 2005, then "surpassed" that total with 195 points in 2006. Pac-10 rivals Oregon --who didn't even qualify for these championships in 2006-- finished second with 177 points, while Florida State claimed third with 236 points.
The NCAA meet will return to Terre Haute for the sixth time in seven years in 2008.
Blood's comments on her Race
“I was never out of control and I felt great,” Blood said. “At Pac-10’s that pace and kind of race felt a little fast, but today I came in confident and feeling great. I wanted to be up in that lead pack early and be in a position to stay with them. My goal was to run with them, so I wanted to be in the best position from the start and not let them get away. The course was great, and the footing was awesome. I was in much better shape this year and got better with every meet. I have a lot more experience this year and a better base and fall season of training. Coming into here, I wanted to be top 10 and try to be top three as a team."
McDougal Holds Off Rupp to Win NCAA Division I
Cross Country National Title
November 19, 2007
Terre Haute, Ind.
For Liberty senior Josh McDougal, the fourth time was the charm. Competing in the NCAA Division I National Cross Country Championships for the fourth-consecutive year, McDougal outkicked Oregon’s Galen Rupp in a thrilling stretch run to capture his first-ever national title. His winning time was 29:22.4 for the 10K distance, Monday afternoon at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Ind.
McDougal (Peru, N.Y.), now a 12-time All-American, becomes Liberty’s second NCAA Division I national champion. Liberty assistant cross country/track & field coach Heather (Sagan) Zealand won the mile race at the 2002 NCAA Division I National Indoor Track & Field Championships. McDougal’s time also eclipsed his own Liberty and Big South Conference records for the 10K distance.
After finishing a disappointing 27th at the 2006 national cross country meet, McDougal entered Monday’s race having won all four of his competitions this season. His seasonal resume included a course record-breaking win at Pre-Nationals, held at the same course in Terre Haute. McDougal also captured the third Southeast Regional title of his career.
Weather conditions were nearly perfect for Monday’s race, as the temperature hovered in the 50s under an overcast sky. Additionally, the course was almost completely dry, a stark contrast to the muddy track runners slogged through in 2006.
The pace went out conservatively for the first half of the race, as the lead pack went through the one-mile mark in 4:39 and passed through 5K in 15:08. McDougal hung with the leaders through the early stages, staying out of traffic.
Shortly after the halfway pole, the pace quickened. By the four-mile mark, only eight runners remained in contention. Less than a mile later, McDougal and Rupp had broken clear of the field, turning the last 2K into a two-man race between a pair of runners seeking their first national titles.
McDougal started a long drive to the finish line just over 1,000 meters out and was able to open a 10-15 meter lead on Rupp, the American collegiate 10K record holder on the track. However, Rupp was not finished. The Oregon junior summoned a final kick of his own and reclaimed the lead within the final 400 meters.
With the runners side-by-side down the final straightaway, McDougal pulled ahead slightly in the last 50 meters and held on for the one-second win and a long sought-after national title. The Liberty senior flung open his arms and looked skyward as he crossed the finish line, celebrating the Flames’ first-ever individual national cross country title.
Meanwhile, Rupp gained a measure of consolation from the fact that his Oregon team won its first national title since 1977, outdistancing Iona, 85-113.
McDougal’s best national finishes, prior to Monday, had been a pair of third-place efforts on the track. He placed third at 3,000 meters indoors and at 5,000 meters outdoors in 2007. His previous highest cross country national placing was a fourth-place effort, during his sophomore year of 2005.