After barely missing out on a bid to last season's NCAA championship meet, the No. 14 Virginia women's cross country team decided it would never again be left sitting at home instead of hitting the trails come mid-November. Virginia accomplished its goal Saturday with a third-place finish in the NCAA Southeast Regional meet in Greenville, S.C. The squad earned an at-large bid for Monday's NCAA championship meet, its first national championship meet appearance since 1993. The championship meet will be held at the Furman University Golf Course in Greenville, S.C.
"We're thrilled," Virginia senior Jennifer Owens said. "This is something we've been planning on in the summer, since last year. To have actually achieved our goal, it feels great."
Owens finished third overall in the six-kilometer race with a time of 21 minutes, 2 seconds to pace the Cavaliers on Saturday. Virginia senior Sarah Folse also placed in the top 10 with an eighth-place finish (21:40). Sophomore Meghan McGarvey compensated for the absence of junior Jolene Hampson by finishing 17th with a time of 22:13.
"Meg McGarvey ran incredibly well," Virginia coach Jason Dunn said. "I was surprised she finished that high."
Four Cavaliers' runners - Ellen Dwyer, Sharon O'Conner, Meg Schwartz and Dawn Cleary - crossed the finish line within 30 seconds of each other to help Virginia to the third-place position.
The Cavaliers, who scored 86 points on the meet, trailed top 10 teams N.C. State (45) and North Carolina (49).
"It's been a while" since we finished that high, Dunn said.
According to Virginia's runners, Dunn has transformed the attitude and expectations of the entire Virginia squad in only his second year at the helm. After the Cavaliers were passed over for a bid for last season's NCAA Championships, Dunn implemented a new summer conditioning program for the runners. But Dunn's greatest contribution was sharpening the Cavaliers' mental approach to meets.
"We've always had a lot of talent, but now, people are living up to certain expectations placed on them by coach Dunn," Owens said. "It just seems that we have a lot of confidence in the team and in each other."
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Dunn, however, believes Owens' return from a one-year hiatus is a key factor in this year's success. After missing the 2000 season for academic reasons, Owens reclaimed her spot as Virginia's top female runner and a team leader. Although Virginia still would have finished third in the regional meet without Owens' points, Dunn said that her contributions cannot be measured with statistics alone.
"Having [Owens] out front and setting the stage for the rest of the runners really pulls everybody else along," he said. "It's huge having somebody like that."
As the only Cavalier with experience in the NCAA championship meet, Owens also will continue to be a guiding light for the rest of her teammates on Monday. This time around, she will look to improve on her All-American 27th-place finish in the 1999 NCAA championships.
"I already have a sense of what the atmosphere is like, but this is a situation where we're not under pressure to do anything superhuman," Owens said. "We just want to finish in the top 10."
Virginia's women have made four appearances in the NCAA championships since the meet was first run in 1983. The team won the 1983 and 1984 titles. The Cavaliers finished 18th in 1991 and 17th in 1993.
The Cavaliers' men's cross country team was not as fortunate and will not be running in NCAAs this season after matching last year's fifth-place finish in the NCAA regional meet on Saturday. Sophomore Walton Kingsberry will be the Virginia men's lone representative at the NCAAs after receiving an at-large bid yesterday. His 6K time of 30:52 earned Kingsberry all-region honors with a 13th-place finish in the regional meet. Senior Justin Wood was the only other Cavalier to finish in the top 25, taking 25th with a time of 31:25.
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