This blog is primarily about Gophers men’s hockey. But, once in a while, I’ll try to cover other sports. Especially something significant like a national meet. So today the topic is cross-country: 

CBS College Sports, one of the hundreds of channels I have at home, was wonderful today. For the second year, it showed the NCAA cross-country championships from Terre Haute, Ind. And it was live.

The broadcasters set up each of the two races — the women’s 6K and the men’s 10K — with comments about the individual and team favorites. The cameras showed the top individuals, how they looked this day and replayed them running in past NCAA meets.

There were 31 teams in each race, 18 automatic picks from nine regions, and 13 at-large teams.

The Gophers, of course, had both a women’s and a men’s team entered.

Carrie Tollefson, a legendary Minnesota runner from Dawson/Boyd who went on to be an NCAA individual champion at Villanova, was an on-course broadcaster. She also interviewed the two individual winners after the race.

Neat gig she got.

She talked a little bit about the course conditions. Temperature 45 degrees, with a wind chill dropping it to 39 degrees and winds of 10 mph. It had rained all night and it was cold and windy.

Actually, 45 or even 39 sounds warm to me.

At any rate, Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech was the two-time defending women’s champion and she won her third title. She wants to be a nurse.

Other facts we found out from Tollefson or the other broadcasters:

The grass was 1-1/2 to 2 inches high. … The footing was solid in most places. … Average attendance at this meet is 4,000. … There are 300 college teams, so only 10 percent of them qualify for this meet. … Kipyego wore the number 637. She wore gloves and a head band. … She has never lost a cross-country race in college.

She covered the first mile of the 3-3/4 mile (6K) race in 4:59. Only one runner, Susan Kuijken, a junior at Florida State from the Netherlands, stayed with Kipyego.

Kuijken was third last year.

At Oregon’s Haywood Field, a crowd of 1,000 was expected to watch the meet on a jumbotron.

At the halfway point of the race, Kipyego had an 8-, 10-yard lead over Kuijken, the rest of the field was already 15 seconds back.

I looked hard for Minnesota runners in the field, but they were difficult to spot. The Gophers were running in the pack.

I did see a couple gigantic maroon and gold flags with a big letter ‘M’. Those had to be Gophers fans, I think.

Kipyego’s winning time was 19:28.1; her pace was about 5:10 per mile.  Kuijken was second in 19:34.9.

The top three teams were Washington, Oregon and Florida State.

Tollefson’s best line of the day came before the men’s race. She was talking about what awaits the runners after 9Ks. “If the guys are not crying [there], they are not trying,” she said poetically.

U WOMEN TIE FOR 11TH

Coach Gary Wilson’s women’s team tied Michigan State for 11th place in the team competion. Illinois, the top Big Ten team was 10th.

Junior Megan Duwell led the Gophers once again as she has all season. She was 24th in the team competition, 32nd overall (some top runners advanced as individuals from the nine region meets).

Gabe Anderson, one of the few seniors on the Gophers, placed 39th in the team competition, while Amy Laskowske was 74th, Mallory Van Ness 92nd and Heather Dorniden 107th.

Usually the Gophers try to run as a pack. Minnesota runners were 12-13-14 in the Midwest Region meet, for instance.

It didn’t work out in this larger meet. But this is a junior-dominated team and should be even stronger next fall.

After repeating as Big Ten and Midwest Region champions, the Gophers were ranked No. 6 coming into NCAAs.

Duwell earned All-America status for her 32nd place overall; the top 40 get that distinction.

TWO ALL-AMERICA MEN

Senior Chris Rombough, 17th overall, and sophomore Hassan Mead, 31st overall, earned All-America status on the men’s side for the Gophers.

As a team, the U, which came in ranked No. 12, finished in 15th place.

The U was eighth last year.

Other runners for the Gophers men were Ben Blankenship, 80th in the team competition, Matt Barrett, 128th, and Mike McFarland, 137th.

THE RUPP SHOW

Senior Galen Rupp of Oregon was the individual men’s winner after placing second last year when he was outkicked at the finish.

This year Rupp did the kicking, edging Sam Chelanga at the finish. Chelanga, a sophomore at Liberty, went out hard and led the first half of the race. Chelanga is 5-7 1/2, 116 pounds.

There was a false start in the men’s race. The seven U runners could clearly be seen in their chute, which was in the middle of starting line.

Chelanga ran the first mile in 4:21. Rupp was far behind but gradually reeled him in.

In the middle of the race, the two bumped slightly as Chelanga slowed as if to let Rupp pass him.

Rupp didn’t, preferring to stay on his shoulder.

Rupp wore a black breathe-rite during the race. As he crossed the finish line first, he flashed a smile and made a sign of the cross.

“I knew I would catch him eventually,” Rupp said when interviewed by Tollefson.

Rupp finished 29:03.2, Chelanga in 29:08.

Behind Rupp’s individual title, Oregon repeated as the team championship. Iona was second.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 6:45 pm and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.