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2005
NCAA INDOOR TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS by Parker Morse
Shadle's long drive to mile victory Lindsey Gallo's easy preliminary round, along with her commanding anchor for Michigan's victorious DMR on Friday, made her a favorite for Saturday's mile final. After running two hard races, however, Gallo wasn't interested in setting the early pace. Like the loser in a bizarre game of musical chairs, Jemissa Hess of High Point was the one everyone else decided to stay behind, and she jogged though a 36-second lap and then a 1:13.2 quarter before Nebraska's Anne Shadle decided they had had quite enough warm-up. "They just kept getting slower and slower," she explained. Shadle's move to the front was covered immediately by Duke's Shannon Rowbury. Ari Lambie of Stanford and Gallo also moved to maintain contact. Shadle led this quartet through halfway in 2:23 (a 70-second quarter) before Gallo moved into third and a gap developed between her and Lambie in fourth. By the time the group of Shadle, Rowbury and Gallo reached three quarters (3:32, a 69-second quarter), Shadle was ready to take ownership of the race, and it appeared that the winner would come out of that lead group of three. When Rowbury moved for the lead as they approached the bell, Shadle responded immediately and maintained her lead. With Rowbury on the outside, they covered both of the last two laps in 33 seconds each. Shadle pulled away slightly on the homestretch to take the championship in 4:38.23, with Rowbury just behind in 4:39.02. Gallo held on for third in 4:41.52, and UNC's Erin Donohue (who, like Gallo, also ran a DMR leg on Friday night) came up for fourth in 4:42.59. Behind Donohue was the pack of kickers, as Hess, Heidi Magill of BYU, Mary Kamau of Idaho, and Lindsey Egerdahl of Washington all finished within a second of each other (in 4:42.99, 4:43.46, 4:43.76 and 4:43.86, respectively). Shadle admitted that she hadn't expected to win, but once in the lead grew more determined to hang on to it. "I wasn't going to let anyone pass me on the last lap," she explained. "I didn't want it to be a sit and kick race." Shadle was also said she was encouraged by the successful day Nebraska was having. Shadle's teammate Ashley Selig won the pentathlon with a 2:13 800m, giving her a 15-point margin over Amy Menlove of BYU, and was waiting for Shadle in the mixed zone. Nebraska finished the meet in fourth place with 29 points. Denton shows her speed Twenty minutes after the mile, with the 800m on the track, there was no difficulty finding a pacemaker. Iowa State's Ada Anderson bolted from the gun, stringing out the field right away with an opening lap of 29.25 and a 1:00.10 split at halfway. Anderson was in over her head, however, and as she started to lag, Arkansas' Aneita Denton took over on the backstretch of the third lap. Denton was followed immediately by LSU's Neisha Bernard-Thomas, and the pair passed 600m in 1:31.80. Bernard-Thomas, who was third to Denton's second in the SEC meet two weeks ago, moved on Denton in the last lap, but Denton still had speed remaining. "I knew [Bernard-Thomas] was coming, and when she came up on me, I said to myself, 'I've got to go.'" "She's got great quarter-mile speed that she's moving up," said Arkansas coach Lance Harter. "It's a lethal package." Denton's winning time was 2:03.65, with Bernard-Thomas second in 2:03.93. Beata Rudzinska of Akron was third in 2:04.12. Metivier in the right place for chaotic 3000m The 3,000m started out looking more like the mile than the 800, with the early lead going to Cassie Ficken of UNC-Charlotte and Sally Meyerhoff of Duke. After that pair led the bunched field through a 1:14.80 first 400, Cack Farrell of Princeton moved up to Ficken's shoulder, or at least where Ficken's shoulder would have been had the two been anywhere near the same height. As this mismatched pair finished off a 3:12.79 kilometer, Adriana Pirtea of UTEP and Marina Muncan of Villanova moved up to third and fourth with a big pack behind them. After six laps, Farrell began half-stepping Ficken, leading her slightly on the outside but not asserting herself as the leader. She continued like this for nearly two laps before finally taking the lead with seven, laps remaining, and Paige Miller of Duke came up to run on Farrell's shoulder. As the pack realigned, Muncan got tangled and went down on the backstretch with about 1350m remaining. With the entire field still together, everyone had passed Muncan before she could even get back on her feet, and though she pushed to the end, she was unable to catch anyone in the distance remaining. Meanwhile, Annie Bersagel of Wake Forest, who had run a strong 5,000m on Friday night, moved up to join Farrell in the lead, and the pace increased as Farrell responded to the move. Other contenders began to position themselves for finishing drives, with Sara Bei of Stanford, Renee Metivier of Colorado, and Lindsay Donaldson of Yale moving up in the field. Farrell's split with a kilometer remaining was 6:22.7, a 3:10, and the pace continued to heat up. With three laps remaining, the contenders seemed to be Farrell and Bersagel in the front, Bei and Pirtea behind them, and Donaldson and Metivier bringing up the rear. Farrell began a drive for home as they approached the finish line for two laps remaining, and Bei moved to cover it, coming up on Farrell's shoulder, and then into the lead. On the backstretch with 350m remaining, however, Bei was clipped from behind, and fell in almost the same spot Muncan had gone down. Immediately the face of the race changed. Farrell was clear of the fall and maintained her drive, and Adriana Pirtea took advantage of the confusion to launch her own drive for the finish. Metivier, who had been in the back and able to dodge any trouble in the fall, moved past Farrell to pursue Pirtea. As they took the bell, Pirtea appeared to have established a winning margin, but on the backstretch of the final lap it was clear that she had moved too soon, and Metivier knew even before catching Pirtea that the race was hers. Pirtea's lead was erased by 100m to go, and Metivier took the lead on the homestretch, finally winning her first NCAA title after two second-place finishes in cross country, in 9:22.81. Pirtea came in second in 9:23.58, with Ivy League rivals Farrell (9:24.20) and Donaldson (9:24.70) third and fourth. "I said today I was going to run smart," said Metivier afterward. "I don't know what happened yesterday; I didn't feel ready, or I did something wrong before the race. When I came back today, I was going to run the smartest tactical race that I could run. I wasn't going to let anyone take it from me today. I think around 150 to go [while she was still in second place] I thought, I have this."
(Posted March 13, 2005)
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