2001 NCAA Women's Cross Country Championships:
BYU Dominates Women's Field/Tara Chaplin Wins Individual Title As Flanagan Walks
by Robert Johnson

Furman, SC - 11/19/2001 - The expected  duel for the team title at the 2001 women's NCAA cross country championships between #1 ranked Stanford and #2 BYU never developed as the Cougars completely dominated the competition from the get go.  BYU with 3 runners in the top 10, led by Michaela Minova in 5th, finished with just 66 points - well ahead of surprise second-place North Carolina State. The top-ranked Stanford Cardinal had a terrible day and finished 5th. BYU's performance was so dominating that they when their 5th runner crossed the line - only one other team (NC State) even had three runners already across the line. Moreover, if you added the point totals of all seven of BYU's runners, they still would have defeated NC State's top 5 by a score of 125 to 147.

#3 ranked Georgetown ran well and finished third with 180 points.  The Hoyas featured what  they have all season long - a very tight spread between their top five.  Despite having a spread of just 57 between there  first runner (Jill Laurendeau 14th) and fifth (Nicole Lee in 64th in the team comp), the Hoyas lacked the fire power up front to contend for the team title.  

The battle for the women's individual crown featured an interesting turn of events. Arizona's Tara Chaplin, winner of the West Regionals, went out very hard as usual and took her customary early lead.  She appeared comfortably in front and led by at least 10 seconds in the early going. However, Chaplin was caught during during the middle of the race by her chasers, led by North Carolina's Shalene Flanagan, who was undefeated in cross country this year coming into this meet and fourth at NCAAs last year as a freshman.. Flanagan, who had tied the course record here in Furman with an impressive 20:26 clocking for 6k (3.4 miles) just two weeks ago at the Southern regional meet, extended her lead to 8 seconds near the three mile mark and appeared to be the sure winner before she stunningly cratered and was quickly reduced to a walk.  

Arizona's Tara Chaplin

Chaplin battled back and went on to get the win in in a new 6k course record of 20:24,  becoming the second individual winner in Arizona school history (Amy Skieresz won in 1996).  Georgia Tech's Renee Metivier, the runner-up to Flanagan at ACCs, finished runner-up on much bigger stage here today in 20:31.   

To those familiar with Flanagan's history like fellow sophomore Metivier, it wasn't a complete shock that Flanagan collapsed late and walked as she had done the same in a few Footlocker cross country races while in high school, but it still was stunning nonetheless.   "(Seeing Flanagan walking) really did surprise me. I didn't expect it as she's been running so well.  I expected her to win and that's why my goal today was to stay on her shoulder (as long as possible)," said Metivier.  "I wasn't like (totally stunned though) as she'd done it before in high school."

The second place showing capped a breakthrough 2001 season for the Metivier, a 1999 state champion in cross country in Texas, as last year Metivier didn't even earn All-American honors at NCAAs.

Flanagan eventually managed to make across the finish line in 20:24 good for 22nd place.  

Chaplin's individual win helped spark a great day for her Arizona Wildcats, who came into the meet ranked 9th.  Led by Chaplin, the Wildcats ended up a surprising fourth -  well ahead of their Pac 10 rival, Stanford.

Chaplin was ecstatic afterwards with both her performance and her team's showing, especially the fact that they beat Stanford.

"I've been wanting the championship since my freshman year, but I've even more excited for the team," said Chaplin. "That's what we're most excited about (beating Stanford).  If we'd finished next-to-last and they were last, then we would have been happy."

Chaplin credited her return to high mileage running with her victory.

"I came into college running over 100 (miles per week) but cut it down and focussed on my speed.  (I didn't run as well as I would have liked) so my coach and I made a deal.  I could run as many miles as I wanted as long as I did every interval with the team," said Chaplin who added that she has run over 100 miles all season long, including last week, and topped out at 130.

The day wasn't a complete disaster for Stanford as junior standout Lauren Fleshman had yet another good day individually at NCAAs and finished 3rd overall.  

"I'm happy with my performance. I definitely ran the best I could on this day and that's what I always go out there to do.  On this day two people just ran faster than I did," said Fleshman who was Stanford's top finisher at NCAAs for the third straight year (4th overall as a freshman, 11th last year). "If it looks like I'm sad, it's just because I'm disappointed for my team as that was my #1 priority out here today."

 Fleshman, who along with all Stanford runners had the names of her teammates written on her hand so they could have a gut-check at 3.5k and remember who they were running for, refused to be drawn into a war of words with her Pac-10 rivals, Arizona, when told that Arizona had been particularly happy to have beaten Stanford.

" I had a feeling they (Arizona) were going to run well and they did. You could see on their faces that they were excited and were going to run well," said Fleshman before expressing a truth about running that is often forgotten  - it's really an internal competition.  "It's not disappointing to lose to anybody in particular. It's disappointing to not run as well as you thought you could run as a team.  The only thing that we were worried with out here today was Stanford and how well we could run as a team. We know we could have run better than we finished."

Another Pac 10 team that had a disappointing day was 10th ranked Arizona State, the LetsRun.com sleeper team to watch, as the Sun Devils finished an extremely disappointing 25th.

Teams performing better than expected included 25th ranked Yale who started the year ranked in the top 10 only to fall all the way to 25th before rebounding yesterday to finish 13th overall.

But the most amazing performance of all was by the 2001 NCAA Champion BYU Cougars.  They saved their best performance of the year for when it counted most and made what was supposed to be a tight team battle into a route. As was mentioned earlier, if you added up the scores of the Cougars top 7 instead of top 5, they still would have won. Congratulations to the Cougars.
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