Stanford women win title Stanford women win title (November 23, 2005)

Lambie leads Cardinal to its third national crown

by Rick Eymer

Mission accomplished for the Stanford women's cross-country team.

With three runners among the top 19, the Cardinal ran to the NCAA national title on Monday with 146 points in a highly competitive race over the 6,000 meter LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind.

Colorado finished second with 181 points, followed by Duke with 184. Arizona State was fourth with 191 points.

Peter Tegen won the title in his first year as coach at Stanford, and for the third time in his career. He won with Wisconsin in 1984 and 1985.

The Stanford men's team finished sixth for the second straight year, with sophomore Neftalem Araia finishing ninth in 29:52.

The Stanford women won their third national title. The victory also extended Stanford's NCAA record 29 straight years with at least one national team title. It's Stanford's 74th team title since 1980, tops in the NCAA.

The 146 points was the highest score ever for an NCAA cross country champion. The Tennessee men won the title with 134 points in 1972.

Stanford redshirt sophomore Arianna Lambie led the way with her eighth-place finish in 19:59.1 and all five scorers proved crucial to Stanford's success.

Lambie, junior Katy Trotter (20:19), redshirt freshman Lindsay Flacks (20:25) and sophomore Lauren Centrowitz (20:40) each finished ahead of Duke's second runner, and redshirt sophomore Teresa McWalters (21:04) finished just ahead of Colorado's fifth runner, securing the victory.

Duke entered the race as the top-ranked team in the nation, while Stanford was ranked second.

Lambie led the pack for over 2,000 meters.

"It was a gutsy race by Stanford," Lambie said. "I'm still emotional right now. We put so much heart into the season. It was the toughest race we have ever own."

Lambie and the Trotter sisters were freshmen runners when Stanford won the title in 2003. Lambie was a redshirt last season because of a back injury. The Cardinal will return all seven runners.

Lambie said the team was more unified this season after winning the West Region meet, and that the team would be prepared.

"We've already accomplished our main goal and that was to stay unified," Lambie said at the time.

One of the keys to Monday's victory was that the group ran well together. A mere 40 seconds separated Lambie and Centrowitz, Stanford's fourth runner. McWalters finished 24 seconds behind Centrowitz. Stanford's average time was 20:30, just ahead of Colorado's 20:33 and Duke's 20:36.

Stanford's five scorers finished within 1:04 of each other while the Buffaloes were within 1:05 of each other and the Blue Devils were within 1:01.

"This is a tight-knit team and we have a good front runner in Arianna," Tegen said. "We didn't know what to expect watching the end of the race. Our order was topsy-turvy throughout the race. It's thrilling knowing that everybody will be back next year."

Lambie and Araia each earned All-American honors for a second time.

After a dry week of weather leading up to race, it was sunny but cold as the race got off under mostly sunny skies and with the temperature hovering near 40 degrees.

Last year it rained for a week leading up to the title race.

"I'm really proud of the team," Araia said. The conditions were more favorable to run this year than last. We ran really tough."

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