by Robert Johnson

Mile
In the girl's mile, New Jersey prep star Erin Donohue, a winner of a national title two years ago as a sophomore, showed that she is back as a force on the national stage by earning a deserved win in a race where she did most of the work. Donohue had a significant 10 plus meter lead on the field for the middle stages of the race before Wyoming's finest, Alicia Craig moved up, and passed Donohue with 400 meters ago. Craig pulled to a 5 meter lead, but Donohue simply wouldn't give up.

One could visibly see Donohue dig deep on the back stretch and by the time they got around to the ball lap Donohue had caught back up. She powered into the lead right at the bell and never looked back, winning convincingly over the final 200, finishing in 4:51.15 to Craig's 4:53.10. Donohue's final 400 was roughly a 70.

"It's very satisfying to win "I decided to go (with 200 left). It's the perfect place to go and I was pretty confident," said Donohue, who had reason to be confident as on Friday night she ran a p.r. in the 800 at the Armory (2:09.5) to finish 3rd in the other national championship after having previously won two New Jersey state titles earlier this winter.

Donohue, who played basketball during her first 3 winters in highschool and tried to stay in running shape by jogging 20-30 miles per week, said after the race that she definitely thinks that giving up basketball this year was a smart decision.

"I've been doing a lot of mileage (this winter). Getting in a good strength base and I know I'm running better than I've ever done before - definitely better than when I ran a 4:48 as a sophomore," said Donohue, a UNC signee for next year. "If the race had gone a little differently today, I could have gone faster."

2 Mile
In the two mile, Aurora Colorado's Megan Kaltenbach, the 18th place finisher at Footlocker X-C this fall, earned a hard fought victory over junior Alison Tubbs with what would have been the nation's leading time of 10:32.89 had Laura Zeigle not run a 10:26.89 at the New Balance meet in New York today. Tubbs ran 10:36.88. The 6th place finisher in the race was seventh grader Nicole Blood of Saratoga Springs, NY (one of six girls from the same track club in Saratoga that competed in the two mile (out of 27 total competitors). (Actually, perhaps I should withhold her name - sort of like how they don't publish the names of juveniles accused of crimes - because I'm not sure how healthy it is for a seventh grader to be running in a national championship highschool meet - no matter how good she is.)

Full Results

Back To High School Front Page
Back to Main Front Page

Questions, comments or suggestions?Please email the LetsRun.com staff at suggestions@LetsRun.com.