Two days, two records for Kim Smith; Tiffany McWilliams hangs on

by Parker Morse

RELATED LINKS: Day One Report Women's Photos Men's Photos Interview with Kim Smith

Saturday night was part two in the Kim Smith show. (Photo: Alison Wade/New York Road Runners)

After Kim Smith's dominating performance in Friday night's 5,000m, the Saturday evening crowd at the University of Arkansas' Tyson Arena was ready to see what she was capable of in the 3,000m, the last women's distance event of the 2004 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. While Smith's seed time for the 5,000m was nearly a full lap ahead of the rest of the field in the longer race, her 3,000m seed was less spectacular. Still, the excitement of breaking a 13-year old record (Sonia O'Sullivan's 5,000m collegiate mark) had not yet worn off. How would Smith double back?

The answer came right away: she'd go out hard. Within a lap of the start, Smith had broken away and her lead was growing. What's more, she was running split times not far from those Tiffany McWilliams had run in the mile just over an hour earlier. Passing the 400m in 1:06 and the 800m in a relatively restrained 2:17.7, Smith had the race won by the first kilometer mark (2:53.74) where she held a nine-second lead. Once she settled in, knocking off 72-second quarters, she passed the 1,600 in 4:41.1 and two kilometers in 5:52.82 (a 2:59). By this time, the announcer was calling the collegiate record time and the pace Smith would need to beat it: 8:53.54 by PattiSue Plumer in 1983, a mark set when Smith was just a toddler. A 3:00 closing kilometer would be enough to break it, but Smith, with a 16-second lead on her closest competitors and the Tyson Center crowd on her side, wasn't about to settle. She ran 2:21 for her closing 800 and 1:09 for her last 400, finishing in 8:49.18 to knock four and a half seconds off the old record.

"I wasn't really aiming for the record," Smith admitted. "I like to run as hard as I can from the gun. It's just the way I race. I haven't really doubled before, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I was nervous, because I was on the outside lane and I didn't really know where any of the other girls were, so I went out a little too quickly. I think I run a lot like [McWilliams], going out hard from the gun and trying to hang out. I get nervous, and I want to get away."

The other 3,000m race, run simultaneously with Smith's time trial, started with the next-fastest seed, Michaela Mannova of BYU, trying in vain to get back in contact with Smith and pulling the rest of the pack. Mannova led for the first ten laps, passing 1K in 3:02 and 2K in 6:08, with Megan Metcalfe of West Virginia and Ida Nilsson of Northern Arizona following. Nilsson took over with five laps to go and shook the pack out, with Stanford's Sara Bei moving into third as Nilsson picked up the pace. Nilsson and Bei soon broke free of the pack, then Metcalfe, then Mannova and Treniere Clement of Georgetown. Bei was the strongest, finishing second to Smith in 9:05.02 with Nilsson third in 9:07.92. Clement continued moving up to finish fourth in 9:11.44, just edging Metcalfe (9:11.74) at the line. Mannova sank to eighth (9:14.14) behind Renee Metivier of Colorado (9:12.89) and Molly Huddle of Notre Dame (9:13.67).

Running scared from the gun was the order of the day in the distance races. Tiffany McWilliams of Mississippi State, as expected, went out hard in the mile (although, as we have noted, only marginally faster than Smith would later in the evening.) McWilliams carried Wisconsin's Hilary Edmondson away from the pack, but Edmondson was already slipping after the McWilliams' 65-second first quarter, which Edmondson passed in 66 and the rest of the pack in 69. Defending champion Johanna Nilsson (Ida's younger sister) of Northern Arizona moved to the front of the chasing pack as they approached halfway (passed by McWilliams in 2:14.5 with Edmondson two seconds in arrears). With 500 to go, Nilsson was past Edmondson and was gaining on McWilliams as she took the three-quarter split (3:25.0). By the bell, Nilsson was on McWilliams' shoulder, much as she had been last year, before she kicked past the tiring McWilliams for the win. This year, however, two things had changed. For one, Nilsson had to work much harder to catch up to McWilliams. For another, McWilliams and her coach had spent a lot of the last year working on kicking off her traditionally ambitious early pace, so by the time Nilsson reached her, McWilliams was already in full flight.

"I'm not able to put it in a really big gear," McWilliams confirmed after the race, "but I'm able to do a lot more than I was able to last year. We do a 200m workout that helps get me ready to change gears. We go in at 200, and I run it steady, then at the 100m mark I kick as hard as I can." McWilliams closed with a 67-second quarter to win in 4:32.24 over Nilsson in 4:32.72. Clement (who doubled back in the 3,000m) took third in 4:35.16 with Edmondson fourth in 4:39.21.

Tennessee junior Nicole Cook, who also ran the 800m leg for the Volunteers' winning DMR on Friday night, came back to win the 800m final on Saturday by more than a second. "I knew I had to do my best on the [last] curve of the last 200," said Cook after the race, and that was where she powered away from LSU's Niesha Bernard-Thomas to win in 2:03.27, with Bernard-Thomas coming in at 2:04.36. Katie Erdman of Michigan almost caught Bernard-Thomas, finishing just five hundredths of a second behind, and top seed Beata Rudzinska was fourth in 2:04.93.

Cook was a powerhouse for the fourth-place Volunteers, with a hand in 25 of their 43 points; she also ran a leg of their 4x400m relay. Tennessee was just nine points away from the win; LSU took the championship with 52 points, beating Florida (51) by a single point in the relay; Nebraska (45.5) rounded out the top three.