Dear Wildcat Harrier Fans, After a summer of hard training, a weeklong camp in Tahoe, and a season of solid performances the Chico State Wildcats toed the line at the NCAA championships knowing that all of their work had boiled down to this moment. The men’s team eyed a possible national title, while the women’s squad knew it was capable of reaching a top three performance if everything went well. Although neither team reached their “ultimate” goal, hard races were run, and top-four performances were had by both squads giving Coach Towne more trophies to stack on the office shelf. We’ll start with the women’s race since they were first to run. Women’s 6k championship race (11:00am start). I list the start time here because the late start times played a crucial role in the dynamics of each race. By the start of the women’s race, temperatures had reached the low 80’s and were climbing by the minute. As the gun sounded the top four wildcats executed their game-plan to perfection. Katie Lee, Jen James, Ciara Harvey, and Missy Lendl settled into spots just inside the top 50-60 overall by the ½ mile and continued to sort through the very fast starters ahead. By the mile this group had worked into the top 50 overall and looked very comfortable in doing so. Frosh Julie Shaw and Soph. Lindsay Nelson (both new to the NCAA event) failed to respond to the gun and immediately placed themselves outside the top 100 runners overall. Senior Dallase Scott who had struggled with workouts in the final weeks of training was instructed to go out extremely conservative through the mile, in hopes of leaving some run in her legs for the final miles of the tough Prado Park layout. From mile 1 to mile 3 Katie Lee definitely ran one of the fastest splits in the field. The senior who had never finished inside the top 75 in this event in her previous 3 attempts, rolled through the field working her way from 45th to 10th place overall. Katie’s blazing stretch in the middle miles placed her among great company, but also cost her a bit in the closing stretch where she would give back a few of these hard-earned spots. During these same miles fellow seniors James, Lendl, and Harvey continued to sort through the field as well, each running with a few seconds between the other. With four runners running among the top 40-45 in the field (something we’ve never done before on the women’s side) attention turned on locating the fifth wildcat. Unfortunately spotting the lead pack so much real estate, coupled with the high temps, created a gap (4-5) that became much larger than our usual 1-5. Neither Nelson or Shaw looked very strong at mid race, and each was buried deep in the field. Working her way up nicely from behind was Scott, who had passed 30-40 runners by the 2 mile mark, and was continuing forward. Up front, the woman of the day was Grand Valley’s Mandi Zemba who had come full circle since winning an NCAA 1500m title on the track as a frosh (Mandi Long then). Mandi was married and had a child during her sophomore and junior years, and now she would pocket her first NCAA XC title during her final run. Second to Zemba was Western State’s latest acquisition Kenyan Esther Komen who handled the heat well while duplicating her regional placing from two weeks previous. NCAA 800m champ and Adams’ #1 runner Victoria Martinez started the flow of Adams State finishers that would result in another NCAA title for the Grizzlies of Alamosa with her third place effort. Losing a kick down the final stretch but happy nonetheless was Chico’s Katie Lee who had earned her seventh All American honor (she has 6 from track) with her 15th place finish. Only 10 runners would cross the line before Jen James nabbed the 26th place spot (Her fourth All American Award). Finishing just seconds behind James was fellow Redding product Missy Lendl who earned her second All American Certificate with her 32nd place finish. Only 9 seconds elapsed before Chico’s #4 runner (also from Redding!!) Ciara Harvey stopped the clock. Unfortunately for Ciara though, 7 runners had fit between herself and Lendl, and 5 of them would claim the final All American spots. Harvey who has not yet earned the honors in track or XC missed the final AA spot by less than 2 seconds!! A bitter-sweet finish for the always consistent and tough Harvey. No less than 90 seconds would expire before the next Wildcat would cross the line, which was enough to scare all of the wildcat fans who were present. Lindsay Nelson who had finished the same 6k layout two weeks previous with a low 23minute time, struggled in with a 24:03 effort. The Wildcat scoring stopped with her 95th place finish and Dallase Scott would cross the line some 15 seconds after in 108th (Same exact time as her regional finish). Frosh Julie Shaw had a very rough outing while placing 149th, but will certainly learn from the experience. With temps being as high as they were, it was obvious that the scores would be higher than usual, giving the wildcat faithful hope that their team had finished at least among the top 4 overall, and perhaps the top 3??? The scores were announced during the men’s race to little fanfare (due to the 10k in progress), and the women had indeed finished 4th overall, tying their best finish ever (2003) and besting the score from the ’03 squad. Third place finisher Western State finished a tantalizingly close 8 points ahead of the ‘Cats, but the Wildcat women had earned team trophies for only the second time in the program’s history and was happy with this repeat accomplishment. Men’s 10k 12:00pm Noon… Temps: 90 degrees Having watched several women stager to the finish, and having viewed the blistered feet of the just finished Wildcat women, and knowing the temps had gone up even since the conclusion of the women’s event, coaches warned the men’s squad about respecting the heat and keeping their composure. All coaches are hopeful that fitness and Not weather will determine the outcome of a championship event, and today the conditions threatened this scenario in a bad way. As the gun sounded the herd of 185 anxious runners began a long and tough 6.2 mile journey that would see no less than 10 athletes fail to finish. Although the site of 4 Wildcats running among the top 10 overall at the ½ mile was most likely an exciting moment for the 70+ painted Chico Fans who had made their way to Prado to watch the Wildcats take a shot at their first NCAA title, it was scary to the coaches who knew that this was a dangerous tactic, especially given the warm conditions. With a host of talented Kenyans in the field including defending champ Nicodemus Naimadu (arguably the best runner in the NCAA regardless of division), the pace was blazing from the front. Naimadu reached the mile in roughly 4:30 with a string of athletes following in the mid to high 4:30’s (including Chico’s Bauhs, Boivin, Miramontes, and Serrano). With four inside the top 10-12 at the mile, the Wildcats next runner Beau Bettinger looked comfortable tucked in nicely around 30th overall. Teammates Rory Kuykendall and Kyle Ivie in a planned move ran more conservatively reaching the mile marker in roughly 4:55 and within the top 75 overall. For Serrano, and Miramontes, the fast early pace and extraordinary heat created a situation where each would slowly fall farther and farther back through the field, neither completely losing their composure, but both unable to access their true potential on this day. At mid race the team title appeared to be another battle between the Colorado schools Western and Adams with Chico battling Abilene Christian for the third spot. An experienced Western squad that included three athletes who were 25 or older, took control of the race in the second half. Several Adams’ athletes who had started the race among the leaders had fallen well off the pace, and now the race for second, third and fourth were wide open. Heading into the final 1.2 mile loop area across the lake, Chico was lead by Pat Boivin who had fluctuated between 10th and 18th in the middle miles, and now ran in the 13th spot overall. Just seconds behind and running 15th overall was Scott Bauhs. Not far behind, but noticeably fatigued was Charlie Serrano who ran in the mid 20’s overall. Running in about 30th position as he had almost the entire race was Beau Bettinger who was also showing the pain caused by the rising temps. Running the middle miles quite well was Rory Kuykendall who now ran in the mid to low 40’s range overall with the struggling Miramontes close behind. Kyle Ivie appeared to be having another difficult outing on the Prado course as he ran outside of the top 60 with less than 1.5miles to go. The final mile was a struggle for most of the ‘Cats who had sold themselves too much with their early pace, but thankfully the conservative start of Ivie paid big dividends in the final mile of the race. Ivie came to life in the final loop area, running what had to be one of the top-10 fastest final miles for the day by any competing athlete. Ivie would pass no less than 25 runners in the final 8 minutes of the race which when the point totals were tallied would be a huge swing for the ‘Cats. As he has done in so many past championship races Pat Boivin would close well over the final 300 meters, passing 5 athletes, and out-kicking a 3:45 1500m guy in the final 200m to claim a solid 11th place finish. Scott Bauhs’ final mile was a complete struggle as the sophomore lost 14 spots in the final stage of the race. Still his 29th place performance earned him his second All American honor. Also struggling mightily over the final kilometers was a spent Charlie Serrano who would finish 34th overall while earning his third All American award. With 200m remaining Chico’s Beau Bettinger ran close with Serrano in the low 30’s overall in the race, but the heat had taken it’s toll on the junior from Castro Valley. Beau’s pace slowed to a trot, and he staggered along the edge of the course clearly unable to fully control his movements any longer. Hordes of runners passed the struggling runner before he finally collapsed about 100m shy of the finish line. Beau is doing fine and was a victim of heat exhaustion and was one of the ten athletes who suffered similar ends to their seasons unfortunately. Thankfully medics and Beau’s parents were present to make sure he was treated and nursed back to health. Thank goodness teams are allowed 7 runners because today we needed all 7 to ensure a solid team finish. Kyle Ivie who’d rolled up many a tired runner over the final 2 kilometers, had out-kicked Southern Illinois’ top runner Brian Tagon with 70m remaining, only to be passed back by the feisty Tagon. But the race wasn’t over yet as Ivie Re-passed Tagon at the line, beating the Illinois native by less than a tenth of a second. Losing a few spots in the final 200m but still having a solid day was Rory Kuykendall who would finish 51st overall, while also ending the wildcat scoring. Holding on well over the final mile, was Antonio Miramontes who managed a 53rd place effort while finishing just seconds behind Kuykendall. It took some time for the results to finally become announced, but the Chico fans were pleased to hear that the Wildcats had held on for a third place finish, tying the third place performance of Chico’s ‘69 team for the best NCAA team finish in the history of the program. Western State had won handily with a 51 point total, Adams was second with 108, and Chico finished in third (127pts) just 4 points ahead of Grand Valley State. Coming into the weekend with a goal of upsetting the Colorado teams at the top of the rankings, the Wildcat squad wasn’t very pleased with the outcome, but anyone who had watched the race knew how hard these men had pushed and how much pain they endured in their 10k effort. They had made a push to win the race, took a huge risk in pushing the early pace, and paid a price but still managed a top-three showing. 2