12 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 23, 1999 Surprise! BYU is NCAA champion By ArunGopal DailySports Writer BLOOMINGTON -Toward the end of the women's race at yesterday's NCAA cross country Championships, a number of media members and coaches lined up next to the finish line, waiting for the runners to cross. Everyone was anxious to see who was going to win both the individual and team titles. Among the crowd were two assistant coaches from Arkansas. They were con- siderably more involved in the proceed- ings than the majority of the spectators. As runners from either Arkansas or Stanford crossed the finish line, the coaches frantically yelled out a running tally of each team's finishers. The coaches were tracking only Arkansas and Stanford for an obvious reason: the third-ranked Razorbacks and the top-ranked Cardinal were the two favorites going into the meet. As .the fifth runners for the Razorbacks and the Cardinal came in, the two coaches stopped yelling and began calculating in their heads each team's score, trying to figure out whether Arkansas or Stanford would have the right to call itself national champion. Then, a funny thing happened. The scores were tabulated, and the winner was announced - Brigham Young. What happened to Arkansas and Stanford? They came in a distant second Kenyan star comes out of nowhere to take NCAA title - LOUIS BROWN/Daily Yesterday Lisa Ouellet and the Michigan women's cross country team finished 15th at the NCAA Championships. In a surprising twist, BYU won the race outright. and third. The Cougars sneaked up on everybody, especially those two Razorback coaches, to claim the NCAA title. "We like to be a darkhorse," Brigham Young coach Patrick Shane said. "We were better than we showed earlier this season." When the final statistics were released, Brigham Young's top five runners had all placed among the top 20, an impressive statistic given that this field was com- prised of the best runners in the country. One reason why the Cougars might have been able to avoid the national radar is that they did not run any of their top five members in any race until the NCAA Regional Championships. Consequently, the results from earlier in W OMEN Continued from Page 11 Palmer's victory (which happened to come on her birthday) spoiled Yoder's triumphant homecoming. Yoder, an Indiana 'native, was nevertheless pleased with her performance, as well as with her team's showing. "It was great to come back home to Indiana," Yoder said, "I really gave it everything I had, but I didn't feel like I was 100 percent to go another gear when Palmer took the lead. I've never cramped up so bad in the last 100 meters." A little bit further down the leader board, Michigan capped off what had been a topsy-turvy season with a 15th place finish. Even though the Wolverines weren't able to defeat their archrival Michigan State, which finished 14th, they were still happy with the way they were able to close out their year. "We placed better than we were ranked going in," Michigan coach Mike McGuire said. "I thought we had good races from Katie Clifford, Elizabeth Kampfe, and Marcy Akard." Leading the way for Michigan was Clifford. The junior posted a time of * 17:32.60 en route to a 41st place finish. For Clifford, the strong showing at the NCAA Championships was a fitting end to a year where she erased many of the disappointments of seasons past. "I thought I did well today," Clifford said. "I ran a minute faster than I did last time I was here (in September)." The Wolverines also got stellar perfor- mances from seniors Kampfe and Akard, who each ran their last cross-country the season didn't reflect how strong the team really was. But at the Mountain Region Championships, the Cougars flexed their muscle by taking five consecutive spots - two through six. "I'm not surprised at all that BYU won," Michigan coach Mike McGuire said. "That team is so deep. All of their kids run the same times, and they're damn good. "They laid low in the bushes for a while, but when you run the way they did at NCAA Regionals, you know that they're going to be good." So Brigham Young is national cham- pion, and Arkansas and Stanford have a year to try and get the license plate num- ber of the semi that just ran over them. race for the maize and blue. One runner who did not have the kind of day that she would have liked was junior Lisa Ouellet. Throughout the sea- son, Ouellet had been Michigan's most consistent runner as well as the team's top finisher in most of its' meets. But Ouellet was not able to run up to par on Monday, finishing as the team's fourth runner in 129th place. Given what the Wolverines have gone through this season, one might think that McGuire would be satisfied with a 15th place finish. But when you have had the kind of success that McGuire has had as a coach, 15th is simply not good enough. "When you consider what's happened. it's a good finish," McGuire said. "I'll take it for this year. But, I don't want to make this a trend." By Jon Schwartz Daily Sports Writer BLOOMINGTON - When a freshman becomes NCAA cross- country champion, his high school would usually become a national landmark. Thirteen year-old middle school students from all over the world would be lining up outside of the doors of the school, trying to become the next star. ESPN would cover the school's history classes, hoping to show the next budding star in a class environ- ment. But when the freshman is a 22- year-old Kenyan immigrant, things change a bit. Yesterday's NCAA Men's Cross- Country Championship was dominat- ed by teams such as Arkansas and North Carolina State. But these top teams in the country were dominated by David Kimani, in the meet as an independent after his school, South Alabama, failed to qualify for the team competition. The victory was the first time in the history of South Alabama that a student had won a national champi- onship in any sport. Kimani, who first moved to the United States on Sept. 5 of this year, came into the meet riding a five meet winning-streak. The native of Nairobi was predict- ed to be among the leaders, and he met and exceeded all expectations, finishing with a time of 30:06.60, MEN Continued from Page 11 But after Cantin, the field for the Michigan team took an odd twist. Steven Lawrence, usually a solid second man for the team, wasn't able to run up to expectations. Finishing 79th overall (60th team) and fourth for the team, Lawrence came in a full 40 spots behind what Michigan coach Ron Warhurst had predicted. Picking up the slack left by Lawrence, sophomore Mike Wisniewski ran well enough to tally 32nd (26) place, followed by fellow sophomore Mark Pilja in 57th (43) place. The team ran into problems with its fifth man. Over the past two weeks, sophomore Tom Caughlan has been taking the place of John Butsie due to various injuries. For a while yesterday, it looked as though despite Butsic's return, Caughlan was still going to finish fifth. But Butsic, who still wasn't feeling 100 percent, caught up to Caughlan and finished in the 140th spot, a full 80 points behind Lawrence. "He was back and he moved through," Warhurst said. "He saved our life." Cantin's run was good almost nine seconds faster than the course record set by Indiana's Bob Kennedy in 1992. While the freshman has been run- ning his whole life, he first started running cross-country competitiely this past March. To some, Kimani's choice of South Alabama may seem like the Kenyan is setting his sights a little low. The NCAA champion could star for any of the national cross-country powers, and therefore have the chance to have his team running with him at the future championship meets. But to Kimani, the choice of South Alabama is a connection to his Kenyan heritage. "'The coach down in South Alabama wanted me because of my former coach in Kenya," he said. "And they worked together to get me here." There are so many cliches that can be used to describe Kimani's race. One could say that he "put South Alabama on the map," and "he's the pride of South Alabama!" Still, each of these terms would be an incorrect assessment. His perfor- mance yesterday benefits only him- self, in that the uniform that he wore was the only connection to his school that he raced with. Because of this, it is unsure whether or not the school will be able to hold onto its new star. A university official expressed that he does know if Kimani will return there. "I hope we can keep him." he said. "But we don't have the money to otTer him that some of the top schools do." The freshman won exery race that he ran this year, after coach Brad Boxman sat him in the team's first two meets. But since he beuan his colleg-c rennin; career, he has been thriving in the shadows of the nation- al stars Coming into Bloomincton on such an impressive streak, there was still a lot of head-turning by those xatchin the independent take the led iiaround the eight-kilometer mark and keep it for the remaininii two. In fact. some runners on the Michigan team hadn't e en heard of the phenom. "I really don't know what to sav" sophomore Mike Wisniewski said. "t don't know who lie is. To the track coaches around the nation, however, the freshman was amthing but unknown. Upon coin- pleting his championship run, Kimani was awarded with NCAA men's cross-country athlete of the year, an award selected by the coach- es around the country. Still, Michigan coach, Ron Warhurst did not seem so impressed with the meet's star. "They say he's 22 years old, but he may be older," Warhurst said. "It's not like he's a rookie. He's a fresh- man, but he's very experienced. "It'd be like running a fifth-year senior." enough to make him an All- American. Before the race, Warhurst had stat- ed that anything above eighth place would make him very happy. And yet, after watching his team exceed his expectations, Warhurst saw much room for improvement. "We ran ok," he said. "We didn't run great. I was shocked to see that we were fifth." The Michigan runners shared the sentiment. Had his runners ran as well as they had throughout the season, could have placed much higher. "I'm somewhat disappointed." Butsic said, "because if we'd all had our best races, we could have had as high as second place. "But, we're also very happy, because we could have even ended up like 10th." But Warhurst still felt the excite- ment of having watched his team overachieve, even if they could have done better. He explained that his runners had responded tremendously to the pressures and tension of run- ning in the biggest race of the season. Following Wisconsin were North Carolina State with 201 points and Stanford with 223. Michigan rounded out the top five with 282. Arkansas came out to an early lead, running with a strategy of starting fast and maintaining the pace. Such a plan is not often seen among top teams, where often, the runners start slower and build up a lead. Perhaps Arkansas coach John McDonnell knew something that the _ rest of the pack didn't. His__ Razorbacks never looked back, and he went on to be awarded NCAA men's cross-country coach of the year, notching his 34th coach- ing championship in cross-country and track. "I love Indiana," McDonnell said "Everytime I come here, we win Their top finisher, Michael Power a senior from Australia, joined Kimani and third place fiisher Steve Fein of Oregon in breaking the Indiana course record of 30:15.30 The three attributed their success to the near-perfect conditions of the track. "Halfway through, (McDonnell) knew that we had won," Power said. "So he was just telling us guys to go for personal glory." Big Ten champion, Wisconsin's Matt Downin, and William and Mary's Matthew Lane closed out the top five, Each year, Golden Key National Honor Society recognizes the top 15 percent of juniors and seniors in all fields of study-those who have main- tained high standards of academic achievement. 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