By Jack Pfeifer
Juliet Bottorff, an unheralded sophomore from Delaware, won the NCAA 10,000 meters Wednesday night in Des Moines, Iowa, becoming the first Duke woman to win an NCAA championship in track and field.
Bottorff, who placed 22nd in the NCAA 5,000 a year ago as a freshman, ran past Dani Stack of Iowa State at the bell and ran away with it over the last lap, winning in a time of 34:25.86. Bottorff is accustomed to groundbreaking moments. Two years ago she anchored the Tatnall School, of Wilmington, Del., to first place in the distance medley relay at the Penn Relays, the first championship ever won by a Delaware high school at Penn.
The 10,000 was the only running final on Wednesday. Preliminaries were also held in the 100, 400, 400 hurdles, 4x100, 800 and the men’s steeplechase, along with finals in the women’s long jump and discus and the men’s javelin and pole vault, in competition at Drake University.
In the steeplechase, Heat II was won in a surprise by Craig Forys of Michigan, in a lifetime-best time of 8:41.59. Forys, a junior who was a star runner for Colts Neck (N.J.) H.S. but had spent the last two and a half seasons in obscurity, ran easily to the victory and advanced to Friday’s final, finishing three seconds ahead of Donn Cabral, of Princeton, last year’s NCAA runnerup. Also qualifying out of that heat were Travis Mahoney, the Temple junior from Old Bridge (N.J.), who was 4th, and Ryan McDermott, of Duke and Chaminade H.S., who got the 6th and final qualifying position.
Another New Jersey runner, Robby Andrews, the Virginia sophomore, won Heat III of the men’s 800, an event with surprisingly fast qualifying times. The slowest of the eight qualifiers was Cory Primm of UCLA, in 1:47.43. In Heat II, the four qualifiers all ran 1:46.29 or faster. In Heat III, with the pace slow at the bell (53.9), Andrews nevertheless remained at the back before moving to the lead in the final straightaway, winning in 1:46.99. In 2010, Andrews was NCAA champion indoors and was runnerup outdoors as a freshman.
In the women’s 8, the LSU sophomore Charlene Lipsey, from Hempstead, L.I., finished 3rd in Heat II in a lifetime best, 2:03.96, and advanced to the final as one of two time qualifiers. That heat was the fastest of the day, as Chanelle Price of Tennessee finished ahead of Kate Grace of Yale, 2:02.84 to 2:03.48. In Heat I, New Yorker Caroline King (Scotia-Glenville) of Boston College finished 6th and was eliminated.
In the women’s 400 hurdles, Dalilah Muhammad, the NYC junior at USC, had her best race of the year and advanced to the final. Muhammad, running in Lane 8 in Heat III, finished 2nd with a strong run over the final hurdle, running 56.04, .05 behind the winner and .04 ahead of 3rd. Only the top two finishers advanced automatically.
In Heat I, Ryann Krais, the Kansas State junior from Methacton (Pa.), ran a lifetime best, 55.68, to finish 2nd and advance.
In the men’s IH, Albany’s Alie Beauvais 51.55 for 5th in Heat II and failed to advance. His teammate, Luke Schoen, cleared 17-2 ¾ and tied for 12th place in the men’s vault.
Two New Yorkers were eliminated in the women’s 400. Zoey Russell (Douglass Academy, NYC) of North Carolina was 7th in her heat, Ashlea McLaughlin (Uniondale) of UCLA 5th in hers.
In the women’s 4x1, Central Florida won its heat, but one of its star freshmen, Dominique Booker (Immaculate Conception, Montclair, N.J.) later scratched inexplicably from the individual 100.
In the team competition, several of the contending teams had mishaps on Day One. Jeneba Tarmoh of Texas A&M, one of the favorites in the women’s 100, was disqualified for a false start. In the women’s 4x100, Oregon dropped its first handoff and failed to finish. In the men’s division, Jeff Demps of Florida, the reigning champion in the 100, failed to advance to the final.
By Jack Pfeifer