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Despite a raging storm overnight, it was warm and sunny in Des Moines, Iowa today, and weather did not interfere with the action at the NCAA Championships. Today's events included the semifinals of the 800 and 1,500, as well as the 10,000 meter finals.
The most surprising development in the women's 800 semis was that defending champion Alysia Johnson did not compete, meaning that we will have a new champion this year. Michigan's Geena Gall and Oregon's Zoe Buckman both looked like strong contenders to take the crown; both won their respective heats with a strong kick. On the men's side, Andrew Wheating won the first heat in 1:47.15, the fastest time of the day. Wheating spent most of the second lap out in lane two, and won with relative ease. The most impressive run of the semis, however, was Duane Solomon's domination of the second heat. Though Wheating has been getting a lot of attention as the next great thing in U.S. middle distance running, Solomon's run served as a reminder that he's the one who ran 1:45.69 to finish third at the USA Championships last summer. Jacob Hernandez of Texas also looked good, and Saturday's final should be a great one.
In the men's 1,500 semis, Leo Manzano won his heat with the fastest time of the day--3:41.70, but everyone already knows that he's the one to beat in this race. Sitting at the finish line, it wasn't apparent what happened to Matt DeBole and Darren Brown, but both runners went down with more than a lap to go. DeBole finished 11th in 3:54.25 and Brown finished 13th in 4:08.32, but it was later announced that both would advance to the final. Having read about Brown and his late father, Barry, becoming the first father-son duo to run sub-4:00 miles when Brown ran 3:59.99 at Texas Relays earlier this season, I was eager to see him run here. I was glad to hear that he and DeBole, both of whom are seniors, would get another chance to run. AJ Acosta's failure to qualify for the final was a bit of a surprise; he ran 3:43.86 and was the fastest non qualifier. [Update: After an appeal, Acosta was allowed into the final.]
Defending champion Brie Felnagle had the fastest time of the day, 4:15.56, in the women's 1,500, but the semifinals did not reveal a lot, as far as I could tell. Sally Kipyego stayed well buried in the pack until the last lap, and she finished a very close second in her heat in 4:17.48. Kipyego dominates the 5,000 and 10,000 at the NCAA level, so it's exciting to see her drop down and run a distance where she'll have some competition. Indoor champion Hannah England looked good in winning the second heat, and her teammate, indoor 3,000m champion Susan Kuijken, who is coming off an injury, finished fourth in the second heat and looked happy about advancing. I did not see what happened to Jessica Eldridge; she finished 10th in the first heat but advanced to the final. Elizabeth Maloy and Ann Detmer fell with just over a lap to go and finished 13th and 11th, respectively, in the second heat. Unlike Brown, DeBole, and Eldridge, they apparently will not advance.
Though the weather cooled off a bit for the 10,000 meter finals, the race-time conditions were still warmer than ideal. Though I feel like I should have a lot to say about a 25-lap race, all I really have to say is that Lisa Koll took off right from the gun, no one went with her, and she won by almost a minute in 32:44.95. Her time broke Patty Murray's 1988 stadium record by 12+ seconds. I hadn't seen Koll race since her breakthrough, but she was fun to watch. She is originally from Iowa and went to high school about an hour-and-a-half north of Des Moines. She had many supporters in the crowd, and I heard people yelling things like, "Go Fort Dodge!" Danette Doetzel was a surprising winner of the other race--the race for second place. She outkicked Alex Gits and Boston University med student Marisa Ryan to take second in 33:44.23.
The men's 10,000 was the exact opposite of the women's with about 10 runners remaining in contention until about two laps to go. The race became a last-lap battle between defending champion Shadrack Songok and Shawn Forrest. Though I generally have no reason to support Shawn Forrest more than any of the other competitors in the race, I couldn't help but pull for him as he entered the homestretch on the heels of Songok. While everyone in the race would love to win an NCAA title, Forrest seemed to be digging deeper than he ever had before in an attempt to give coach John McDonnell the best retirement present of all. In the end, he came up .39 of a second shy of winning, but he showed some real toughness in challenging Shadrack Songok all the way to the finish. Songok won the race in 28:46.69.
I'm going to post the remainder of my day one photos momentarily, and hopefully tomorrow I will have a chance to post a bunch of my photos from this evening.
Posted by Alison Wade at 1:23 a.m. | Tags: 2008 NCAA Outdoor T&F Champs
Karen commented, on June 13, 2008 at 1 p.m.:
Ditto what pjm said. You're doing a great job blogging (and photos, and the site, and the cookbook, and...)!
The Langers from Grand Blanc commented, on June 20, 2008 at 1:02 p.m.:
Go Geena!
pjm commented, on June 13, 2008 at 9:18 a.m.:
These updates are great, I'm really enjoying reading them. It's nice to have a concise summary of what happened with a good mix of personal observation.