The No. 2-ranked BYU women's cross country team used its depth to knock off defending national champion and No. 7 Colorado Saturday at East Bay Golf Course on Saturday, Nov. 10, en route to capturing the NCAA Mountain Division title.

Along with the crown, BYU earned an automatic qualification to the national meet in Greenville, S.C., on Nov. 19 where the Cougars will seek their third national championship in the last five years.

The BYU men's team, however, just missed out on an automatic qualification, finishing third in Saturday's race behind No. 1 Colorado and Northern Arizona. The Cougars will likely earn an at-large invitation.

On the women's side, BYU had an incredible spacing of just 36 seconds between its first and fifth runner. The bulk of the Cougar team appeared to run in the lead pack for the majority of the race, and it was BYU's depth that allowed them to overcome a strong performance by the Buffaloes.

Colorado's Jodie Hughes won the race, but BYU runner Tara Northcutt's gutsy finish-line sprint enabled her to edge out the Buffaloes' Molly Austin for second place by six-tenths of a second.

"Being in front of our BYU fans and having the cheerleaders there was awesome," Northcutt said. "You catch the excitement of the crowd, and it makes you push that little bit more."

Austin would be the last Buffalo to cross the finish line ahead of BYU's scoring pack.

Four more BYU runners finished in the top 10. Jesse Kindschi finished in fifth place, and the trio of Lindsey Thomsen, Sarah Taylor, and Nan Evans finished in seventh, eighth, and ninth place, respectively.

These scores gave BYU the first-place low of 31 points. Michaela Manova finished in 12th, just ahead of the remainder of the Buffaloes' scoring pack. Colorado finished in second with 48 points.

"Having the whole team run together helps a lot because we really push each other run and keep everybody going," Kindschi said.

In the men's race, BYU's Lewis Jones led early, but the Colorado tandem of Jorge Torres and Dathan Ritzenhein took control around the 5,000-meter mark of the 10K race and never relinquished, finishing first and second, respectively.

John Hedengren was the first Cougar to cross, finishing in sixth place with a time of 31:19. Andy Carman, Ammon Larsen, Lewis Jones, and Steve Barrus finished in 18th, 26th, 27th, and 38th place, respectively.

Barrus' time of 32:21 gave BYU a separation time of 1:02, off the 30 seconds that coach Ed Eyestone had hoped for going into the race. But Eyestone's team did appear to listen his message of trying to beat the runners around them, as both Carman and Jones finished strongly, edging out an opponent runner by less than one second.

"Today's finish could be good for us going into national because we will go in wanting to prove something," said head coach Ed Eyestone. "We had some guys who were sick but they gutted it out and got the job done. John Hedengren came through as our go-to guy, and that's what you count on from an All-American."



Copyright Brigham Young University 12 Nov 2001