2005 NCAA INDOOR TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ida Nilsson climbs to first in 5,000m; Lindsey Gallo anchors Michigan to DMR victory

by Parker Morse

Ida Nilsson used a long drive to pull away and win the 5,000m title. (Both photos: Alison Wade/New York Road Runners, click to enlarge)

Lindsey Gallo (pictured with Sara Bei) anchored Michigan to victory in a thrilling DMR.

Friday's schedule at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships was heavy on qualifying rounds, but two distance finals were contested at the University of Arkansas' Tyson Track Center: the 5,000m and the distance medley relay. Both races rewarded patience — in the case of the 5,000m, the winner was an athlete who had improved her NCAA placing in each of her four appearances here.

With her cross country experience in mind, it was not surprising to see Colorado's Renee Metivier move to the front of the 5,000m as the pace was being sorted out. Metivier used front-runner Kim Smith to pull her clear of the pack last November in Indiana, and though she couldn't hang on to Smith, Metivier built enough of a gap in second early in the race to fend off late-race rushes from the likes of Columbia's Caroline Bierbaum, BYU's Laura Turner, and Pittsburgh's Maureen McCandless.

Indoors, without the whirlwind that was Smith pulling her, Metivier found it harder to separate herself from that sort of field. Five laps into the race, after a 3:06 kilometer, Metivier was the head of a file of runners including Stanford's two-time outdoor 10,000m champion Alicia Craig, 2004 steeplechase champion Ida Nilsson of Northern Arizona, Turner, Bierbaum, and Renee Gunning of North Carolina State. The pace sagged to 38-second laps, then 39-second laps, and as the order of the wolves at Metivier's heels changed, the second kilometer was covered in 3:10. After a few 39-second laps, Bierbaum moved up on Metivier's shoulder and the pack bunched up nervously, waiting to cover any moves.

After a 3:15 third kilometer, Bierbaum could wait no longer, and moved to the front. Nilsson covered the move immediately. "You can't pay attention to the laps or the splits," she said afterward. "You watch the situations and the people around you."

Bierbaum's attempt to step up the pace was no more successful than Metivier's. A new pack formed, with Bierbaum leading, Nilsson off her shoulder, then Craig, Metivier, and Wake Forest's Anne Bersagel. With seven laps to go, Metivier began to slide off the back of this pack, and Amy Hastings of Arizona State bridged the gap from the second pack to take over fifth with six laps remaining.

The pack had been running 38s and 39s for so long that when Nilsson took over the lead with five laps remaining, she needed only two laps at 37 to establish a gap on Bierbaum. "I'm not a strong kicker," she explained. "I felt like I had waited as long as I could, and I couldn't wait any longer. I knew somebody was going to make a move sooner or later."

Nilsson, however, may have been the strongest kicker remaining at that point. Favoring the 3,000m in the past (in which she finished third in 2004, fourth in 2002, and fifth in 2001 while running for Arkansas-Little Rock) she was running against athletes who favored long grinds over bursts of speed, and none could respond. Nilsson won her second NCAA championship in 15:50.20. Bierbaum, who closed some of the gap at the end, was second in 15:52.53, and Bersagel held off Craig for third, 15:56.97 to 16:00.07. Hastings was fifth in 16:06.62, and Metivier wound up sixth in 16:08.72.

Distance Medley Relay
The University of North Carolina had hopes of regaining the DMR title they won in 2003 with Shalane Flanagan anchoring, and they almost pulled it off. Erin Donohue let Duke's Meaghan Leon take an early lead in the first leg, sitting in fourth, then one by one she knocked off Arkansas' Aneita Denton, Villanova's Colleen Taylor, and finally Leon to hand off to 400m runner Danielle Rodgers in the lead. Rodgers and 800m runner Georgia Kloss had built a seven-second lead when they handed off to Cassie King for the anchor leg.

Meanwhile, Georgetown, Stanford, Michigan, and Arkansas handed off to their milers almost simultaneously, setting up a pack of Colleen Kelly (Georgetown), Sara Bei (Stanford), Lindsey Gallo (Michigan), and Dacia Barr (Arkansas) working together in pursuit of King. Gallo had already run (and won) a mile preliminary earlier in the evening, but she had shown her stamina two weeks earlier in winning a distance triple at the Big Ten Indoor Championships. Barr and Kelly were burned off as Villanova's Marina Muncan joined the pursuit. They whittled nearly a second from King's lead with each lap, and with just about 250m remaining they made contact. Muncan was the first to pass King, with Bei moving Stanford into second immediately afterward. Gallo shadowed both, then made her move on the final homestretch, carrying Michigan to a dramatic win in 11:08.24. Muncan brought Villanova in at 11:08.76, with Bei and Stanford just a blink later in 11:08.81. UNC settled for fourth in 11:11.69. Michigan's splits were reported as 3:25.0 for 1,200m runner Nicole Edwards, 54.6 for 400m runner Sierra Hauser-Price, 2:11 for 800m runner Theresa Feldkamp, and 4:37.5 on the 1,600m anchor leg for Gallo.

800m Preliminaries - Collegiate Record holder Nicole Cook fails to advance
Rounds of the 800m are races to be survived, not won, and the two women's rounds highlighted that fact. While SEC rivals Aneita Denton of Arkansas (first in 2:04.70) and Neisha Bernard-Thomas of LSU (second in 2:06.23) advanced from the first heat by staying clear of trouble in an unevenly-paced race, Nicole Cook of Tennessee was unable to manage the same feat in the second heat. Shadowing the leaders of a largely intact pack through 700m, Cook found herself boxed in when Missouri's Ashley Patten rushed to the lead on the final stretch. Looking for an exit, Cook chopped her stride, stumbled, and found herself crossing the line eighth and out of qualifying.

In Cook's absence, the final could be a rerun of Denton and Bernard-Thomas's SEC duel, but second-heat leaders Ada Anderson of Iowa State (second in 2:05.93) and Patten (first in 2:05.70) could shape the course of the race as well. Patten, in particular, will need to be run off her feet if Denton and Bernard-Thomas do not want to fend off her late-race heroics.

Mile Preliminaries - Lindsey Gallo, Erin Donohue win their heats
The mile heats were less dramatic, with trios breaking away in both heats to advance automatically. UNC's Erin Donohue (4:45.13), Stanford's Arianna Lambie (4:45.15), and Duke's Shannon Rowbury (4:45.32) began building a gap on the rest of the first heat by halfway through the race, though Mary Kamau of Idaho's late-race surge put her immediately behind Rowbury. In the second heat, again, the race developed at halfway, as Michigan's Lindsay Gallo (4:44.66) broke away and held her lead to the finish. Nebraska's Anne Shadle (4:45.03) and BYU's Heidi Magill (4:45.14) followed Gallo's lead, but were less successful in maintaining a gap as Villanova's Ioana Parusheva and High Point's Jemissa Hess were able to regain contact and advance on time.