Drennen 174th at NCAA championships
11/23/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country, Cross Country
University of Montana junior Katrina Drennen placed 174th Monday afternoon at the NCAA cross country championships in Terre Haute, Ind. Drennen covered the six-kilometer course in 21:51 in her first appearance at the national championships.
Drennen was the Grizzlies??? first athlete at the NCAA meet since 2006, when Allie Brosh broke the top 100 with a 99th-place finish.
???Overall it was a great race for Katrina in her first experience at nationals,??? UM coach Courtney Babcock said. ???She was steady throughout and was able to have a really strong finish.
???It was a great opportunity for her to race this year. Your first year you get here, you get the experience and then you start to raise your expectations. You start focusing on next year and set your sights on an all-America finish.
???She???s off to a good start toward achieving that goal because she already believes that she should be here racing at this level.???
???It was definitely a tough race today, so I tried to stay positive,??? Drennen said. ???I was able to key off of some of the other runners from the (Mountain Region) who I was around at regionals, so it was kind of a race within a race.
???A race like this is so much different than any of our races around Montana. With the depth of quality in the field and the enthusiasm of the crowd, it???s hard not to get swept up and give it your all.???
Drennen was part of a dramatic women???s race that saw Illinois senior Angela Bizzarri (19:46) take the lead in the final few hundred meters on her way to a five-second victory over Washington sophomore Kendra Schaaf (19:51).
Florida State senior Susan Kuijken (19:57), who held on for third place, and Colorado senior Jenny Barringer, the pre-race co-favorites, broke away from the rest of the 254-athlete field early on.
A couple thousand meters into the race, Bizzarri made a move and Barringer noticeably buckled. Barringer, who competed for the U.S. at the Beijing Olympics, would eventually be forced to walk and at one point fell to her knees.
Barringer would regroup and finish 163rd in 21:46, just ahead of Drennen.
Kuijken held the solo lead until Bizzarri and Schaaf passed her with under 800 meters to go. Bizzarri and Schaaf ran together until a finishing move by the Illini in the final few hundred meters gained her some separation.
Virginia junior Catherine White placed fourth in 19:59, Colorado freshman Allie McLaughlin was fifth in 20:01.
Northern Arizona senior Veronica Pohl was the only other Big Sky Conference athlete competing in the women???s race. Pohl, the 2008 and ???09 Big Sky Conference champion, placed 38th in a time of 20:43.
Villanova placed its top five in the top 30 overall to win the women???s team title with 86 points. The Wildcats were followed by Florida State (133), 2008 champion Washington (188), Texas Tech (191) and Princeton (251) in the top five.
Unlike the women???s race, the men???s race had one leader from the start in Liberty junior Samuel Chelanga, who won the 10-kilometer race in a course-record 28:41.
Northern Arizona junior David McNeill made a late move to free himself of a two-man battle with Stanford sophomore Chris Derrick. McNeill finished second in 29:06, Derrick third in 29:14.
Mississippi junior Barnabas Kirui was fourth in 29:24, while Northern Arizona junior Jordan Chipangama rounded out the top five in 29:33.
Oklahoma State surprised the men???s field with a team title with 127 points, 16 better than 2007 and ???08 champion Oregon.
Alabama was third (173), Northern Arizona fourth (190) and William & Mary fifth (226).
