Washington's Women Win Both 2009 Conference and NCAA West Regional X-Country Championships
Ed Bagley
Copyright © 2010 Ed Bagley
The University of Washington's women cross-country runners are the defending national champions, and they looked every bit the part while sweeping both the 2009 Pacific-10 Conference and NCAA West Regional titles.
The Huskies number one rival—the Oregon Ducks—had to settle for runner-up spots in both of these key competitions leading the 2009 NCAA National Championship Meet.
Washington warmed up for the huge West Regional qualifying meet by racing to a 2-4-5-8-16 finish among 87 runners and 10 teams at the Pac-10 final hosted by Southern California at Skylinks Golf Course. Washington's low-winning score of 35 kept Oregon's 42-point effort easily at bay. Arizona State was 3rd with 100, and Washington State was last with 251. Each team enters 7 runners but only the first 5 figure in the scoring.
The Huskies were led by sophomore Kendra Schaaf's 2nd place finish in 19:46.17 over the 6-kilometer course (3.72 miles). Junior Marie Lawrence was 4th in 19:49.02, sophomore Christine Babcock 5th in 19:58.82, senior Katie Follett 8th in 20:08.04 and junior Kailey Campbell 16th in 20:31.67.
Washington's 6th runner, freshman Allison Linnell, was 19th in 20:35.36, and its 7th runner, junior Lauren Saylor, was 25th in 20:40.99. Imagine finishing 19th and 25th and they are too far back to figure in their team's score. Is Washington loaded? Yeah, like an automated weapon, they move like rifle fire across the course to victory.
Oregon did have two bright spots—senior Nicole Blood won the meet in 19:41.71, 4.46 seconds faster than individual runner-up Kendra Schaaf, the former Canadian Junior National Cross-Country Champion from Craven, Saskatchewan. Babcock, who finished 5th, ran a 4:35.41 mile in high school, the second fastest high school time ever.
And the Ducks' second bright spot was Jordan Hasay, who finished 3rd in 19:48.97. Hasay is arguably the best freshman runner in the country. She clocked the best nation's best mile (4:37.34) last year, and set the American high school record of 4:14.50 while running in a 1500-meter semifinal heat as a 16-year-old junior at the 2008 U. S. Olympic Trials at the University of Oregon's storied Hayward Field in Eugene.
Washington's men finished well out of it at 4th in the team competition and were led by senior Kelly Spady's 10th-place finish in 23:25.62 over the 8K course (4.96 miles).
After polishing off the Pac-10 trophy, Washington's women ran 1-3-4-7-10 in the NCAA West Regional to win their second consecutive title with 25 points, leaving Oregon to finish 2nd again, this time with 66 points, and the rest of the competition was left on the other side of the planet. Pepperdine finished 25th and last with 742 points.
So how dominate was it? Well, Kendra Schaaf was 1st (20.41.70), Marie Lawrence 3rd (20:58.87), Kailey Campbell 4th (21:00.31), Katie Follett 7th (21:02.93), Christine Babcock 10th (21:12.90), Lindsay Flanagan 27th (21:41.86) and Kayla Evans 30th (21:52.78).
I know, you are asking, "Where did freshman Lindsay Flanagan and redshirt freshman Kayla Evans come from?" Hey, Washington is loaded with talented, young runners.
There were 184 women competing in the West Regional meet hosted by the University of Oregon at the Springfield Country Club in Springfield.
Stanford won the men's 10K West Regional title with a 1-2-3 finish and 27 total points. Chris Derrick was 1st in 30:38.84 and Elliott Heath was 2nd in 30:38.96, only 12-one-hundreds-of-a-second separated them.
The Washington men finished 4th in the team competition, led by Colton Tully-Doyle's 17th-place finish in 31:12.52. There were 182 men competitors.
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