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NCAA Cross-Country - Washington's 2 Freshmen Lead Women to the 2008 National Cross-Country Title

By Ed Bagley

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 22Dec2008 Word count: 939 Viewed: 144 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

Imagine for a moment that you are the head coach at a major university and you recruit two freshmen to run on your cross-country team. You do not redshirt them because they are good enough to run on your varsity. A few months later they finish 5th and 9th to lead your team to its first NCAA National Championship.

University of Washington coach Greg Metcalf had to be smiling all the way back home to Seattle from the Indiana State University campus in Terre Haute.

His good fortune was to find and sign Christine Babcock, the best prep senior middle distance runner in America last year from Woodbridge High School in Irvine (CA), and Kendra Schaaf, the Canadian Junior National Cross-Country Champion from Lumsden High School in Craven, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Babcock ran 4:33.82 last year to set the new national high school record for the 1600-meter run and clocked 4:35.41 in the mile, the 2nd best high school time ever (the national record is 4:35.24).

Babcock finished 5th in 20:02 in team competition at the 2008 National Championship meet and Schaaf finished 9th in 20:18 to lead the Washington women to their first ever national title with 79 points to Oregon's 131.

Washington's win broke a string of 3-straight NCAA titles for Stanford. Particularly sweet was also the fact that the Huskies victory was their 3rd straight over Oregon, having bested the Ducks for the Pac 10 title, the West Regional title and now the National Championship.

The men have had a National Championship Meet since 1938 but the women have only competed in their National Championship Meet since 1981, so Washington becomes only the 11th school in 28 years of competition to win a national championship. Villanova has won 7 titles, Stanford 5 and Brigham Young 4; no other school has more than 2 titles.

Babcock and Schaaf had a lot of great support from their Husky teammates. Sophomore Marie (Mel) Lawrence was 19th in 20:33, junior Katie Follett was 20th in 20:33, senior Amanda Miller was 26th in 20:37, sophomore Lauren Saylor was 32nd in 20:44 and senior Anita Campbell was 41st in 20:51. The Husky scorers were 5-9-19-20-26 for an average time of 20:25 with a spread between their first and last scorer of 35 seconds. Now we're talkin'. All 5 of Washington's scorers earned All-American honors.

So just how special are Washington's 2 freshmen cross-country phenoms? Special enough to get a big head, but not nearly special enough to win a national team title or any other team title without their teammates. For the record, the next freshman to cross the finish line was 47th (Emily Infeld of Georgetown).

The Oregon women ran 6-8-31-38-48 for an average time of 20:32 and a spread of 50 seconds. Florida State was 3rd, West Virginia 4th, Princeton 5th, Villanova 6th, Texas Tech 7th, Stanford 8th, Georgetown 9th and Illinois 10th.

Michigan State senior Nicole Bush finished 7th in 20:08 followed by Spartan teammates Lisa Senakiewich (21st), Emily MacLeod (72nd), Emily Langenberg (98th) and Sarah Price (138th). Michigan State finished 11th.

Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech won the individual title in 19:28.1, a 6,000-meter (3.72 mile) course record despite cold, windy, rainy conditions for everyone. The win was Kipyego's 3rd straight national title. Senior Brie Felnagle of North Carolina, a product of Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma (WA), finished 4th in 19:53.3.

In the men's competition, defending national champion and No. 1-ranked Oregon won its second straight National Championship, and senior Galen Rupp, a member of the U. S. team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, won the individual title and set a 10,000-meter (6.2 mile) course record in 29:04.

Apparently really crummy, uncomfortable weather does not seem to bother champions who set course records as much as those who follow them to the finish line. Thirty-one teams and 252 runners competed in both races.

The national title was Oregon's 5th in the school's history and also the 5th for coach Vin Lananna in his career, his 2nd at Oregon after winning 3 more at Stanford.

Rupp was followed by Duck teammates Luke Puskedra (4th), Shadrac Kiptoo-Biwott (8th), Matthew Centrowitz (36th) and Diego Mercado (44th). Puskedra is a freshman.

The race was a gut-buster between Rupp and sophomore Samuel Chelanga of Liberty, whose team did not qualify but Chelanga did qualify as an individual. They ran stride-for-stride for most of the race until Rupp found another gear in the last 1,000 meters to win by 5 seconds.

Iona was runner-up, Stanford was 3rd, Wisconsin 4th, Auburn 5th, Northern Arizona 6th, Portland 7th, Oklahoma State 8th, Brigham Young 9th and Georgetown 10th. The Washington men finished 18th.

When the final NCAA women rankings came out, Washington was 1st, Oregon 2nd, Florida State 3rd, Princeton 4th and West Virginia 5th. Michigan State was 13th. Among the men, Oregon was 1st, Oklahoma State 2nd, Stanford 3rd, Wisconsin 4th, Alabama 5th and Portland 6th.

The University of Portland is quite accomplished in its own backyard. Pilot Senior David Kinsella placed 4th at the National Championship Meet and the Pilot team was 7th.

Prior to the National meet, the Portland men won their 30th consecutive (you read it right) West Coast Conference title and the Portland women won their 7th consecutive title. Thirty years is a very long time, and the streak is a record for any sport in the WCC. There are pockets of really interesting information everywhere but you have to ferret it out.

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