Shay leads men as All-American,
By KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Assistant Sports Editor
The Irish men's cross country team reestablished itself as one of the top college programs in the country Monday, placing eighth at the NCAA Championships behind junior Ryan Shay's All-American finish.
"This puts us back where we belong — in the top 10 in the nation like the past five, 10, even 20 years," sophomore Luke Watson said. "It reestablishes us after last year not being in the top 10 and not even making it to nationals."
The women, meanwhile, were not especially pleased with their 29th-place finish, but they were excited just to be at the national meet.
"We really didn't put very much pressure on ourselves," freshman Jennifer Handley said. "No one expected us to do well, so we wanted to show the other teams that we belonged there."
Seventh in the standings before the meet, the Irish men were aiming for a top 10 performance. They did just that by capturing eighth, their sixth top 10 finish of the decade.
"Our first goal was to be in the top 10 and we did that," coach Joe Piane said. "To a man, I think everyone will tell you he can run a little bit better. I don't think anybody leaves here without saying they could have done better."
Shay garnered 12th place overall in a 10K time of 30:46.10. The finish earned him the first All-American honors by a Notre Dame men's cross country runner since Derek Seiling and Jason Rexing in 1996.
"He certainly made All-American," Piane said, "and he put himself in a position to have a great race."
Shay was hoping to finish among the top five to 10 runners at the meet and was near the front of the pack early on, but he struggled during the middle of the race because of a side cramp.
"I don't think it was one of my better performances," Shay said. "It all came down to how I was physically feeling on that particular day, but not everything fit together the way I wanted it to. Mentally, I felt like I could run with them the whole way, but physically it didn't happen."
"He hung in there with the leaders through 8K even," Watson said. "I thought he ran a real gutsy race."
Watson was second for the Irish and 58th overall in 31:35.30, followed by senior Ryan Maxwell in 100th place in the race.
"To come out of it in eighth was pretty good for us, because weird things happen at nationals," Watson said. "Altogether we ran pretty well, and that was good enough for us to get eighth."
Rounding out the Irish finishers were sophomore Marc Striowski, and seniors Sean McManus, John Dudley and Mike Griewe.
"I think those guys have to be proud of the fact that at the beginning of the year they didn't have any votes to be in the top 25," Piane said, "And they ended up eighth in the country. Actually, the future's pretty bright with three of our top four guys back."
The men's squad, unranked at the beginning of the 1999 campaign, improved steadily throughout the season.
"We're not really satisfied with our performance, but we did reach our goal of being in the top 10," Shay said. "It's not that we performed that bad, but we felt that if we would have run to our capabilities, we could have been in the top five."
Arkansas easily won the race with only 58 points, followed by Wisconsin (185), North Carolina State, Stanford and Michigan.
The individual champion was David Kimani, a freshman from South Alabama, who finished in a meet record time of 30:06.60.
The women's squad, running without returning All-American JoAnna Deeter, did not have high expectations after receiving a surprise bid to the national meet. They were hoping to wind up in the top 20 but had to settle for 29th place in the race.
Women's coach Tim Connelly was hoping for more out of lead runner Allison Klemmer and Handley, who was second for the Irish. Klemmer hoped to be in the top 25 and to earn All-American honors, but she finished 73rd. Handley ended up 134th in the 5K race.
"I give her [Klemmer] credit," Connelly said. "She went out and tried to run exactly the way she planned to run, and then just couldn't finish it. She's pretty disappointed; she had high expectations.
"Jennifer Handley didn't run very well. I thought she'd finish about where Allison did."
Klemmer fought off illness during the race.
The rest of the Irish squad performed at the level Connelly thought them capable of.
"They all finished one right after the other," Connelly said. "They did exactly what we asked them to. We were counting on a couple of those lower numbers to help us finish where we wanted to."
The third through seventh runners had a great pack race, all finishing within 11 seconds of one another.
"We did one thing well," Handley said. "We all ran as a team."
Senior Patty Rice ended her cross country career by finishing 186th overall and third for the Irish. Junior Erin Olson was 191st, senior Nicole LaSelle followed, and junior Chrissy Kuenster and senior Erin Luby were the final Irish runners.
"The teams up front, even the team that was the huge favorite — Stanford — ended up third," Connelly said. "The thing with that national meet is if teams go in there and just hold form, they're going to do well. Unfortunately in that kind of situation with 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds, there's a lot of pressure."
Brigham Young raced to the women's national championship, with Arkansas second and Stanford third.
Sophomore Erica Palmer of Wisconsin was the women's individual champion.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, November 23, 1999
