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CROSS COUNTRY

Running Away with the Championship

LAST YEAR: HEARTBREAK. The Stanford men’s cross country team lost the NCAA championship to Colorado by a single point, the closest race in the history of the event. This year: redemption. Pounding in a pack across the finish line, the No. 1-ranked team placed four runners among the top 10 finishers in the 10,000 meters to win the national championship on November 25 in Terre Haute, Ind. In the 6,000-meter women’s race, the Cardinal finished second behind Brigham Young.

“I haven’t seen a team dominate like this at this level in quite a while,” coach Vin Lananna said after the men’s race, which they won by 60 points over second-place Wisconsin. “And our women’s team also did an outstanding job and finished right where they were expected to.”

During the regular season, the women’s team won every race and the men all but one, taking third in the 8,000 meters at the Stanford Invitational. They then swept the NCAA west regionals, the men winning their eighth consecutive regional title and the women taking home their sixth in seven years.

In the men’s championship race, senior Grant Robison, the two-time Pac-10 individual champion and a seven-time All-American in cross country and track and field, led the Cardinal with a third-place finish of 29:36.7. Senior Louis Luchini finished in fifth place, junior Donald Sage was sixth, and junior Ian Dobson came in ninth. Senior Adam Tenforde completed the Cardinal scoring in 29th place, and sophomore Ryan Hall, in 37th place, gave the Cardinal a total of six All-Americans.

“We had high expectations going into the season, but this was amazing for us,” said Robison, who stopped out for two years to go on a Mormon mission in South Africa. “Having such a strong team took a lot of individual pressure off me.” His lucky socks and lucky necklace probably didn’t hurt, either.

The No. 2-ranked Cardinal women expected to face tough competition from Brigham Young, and they finished 28 points behind the defending champion. Sophomore Alicia Craig placed third with a time of 19:48, a hair before senior Lauren Fleshman crossed the line at 19:48.3. Senior Malindi Elmore finished in 11th place to give the Cardinal women three All-Americans. Sophomore Sara Bei, in 57th place, and senior Erin Sullivan, in 79th, completed Stanford’s scoring.

Fleshman, a 12-time All-American and Stanford’s top NCAA performer last year with a third-place finish, says there was a “wonderful dynamic” on the teams this year, whether they were working out on the track or getting together for Sunday-night dinners. “We ran with integrity and left it all out on the course,” she said after the NCAAs. “It’s so hard to explain how much I enjoyed this season.”

And that, Lananna stressed both before and after the meet, was the secret: “We went into this season all about team, and everyone has bought into that, myself included.”

BASKETBALL

Worthy Opponents

AS THE WOMEN'S basketball team gears up to take on tough Pac-10 opponents, it’s getting help from a somewhat surprising source.

During practice, a handful of male undergraduates scrimmage against top women like Nicole Powell, ’04, and Sebnem Kimyacioglu, ’05. Most are former high school varsity players who love the game, but don’t have the stuff for a Division I men’s squad. Each plays about three times a week and, with the exception of manager Micah Lewis-Kraus, ’05, they don’t get paid. But, they say, they like the competitive play and good workout.

The Cardinal women’s basketball and soccer teams are among several nationwide that practice with men. The coaches and players like it because the men are more challenging opponents, especially for the starters, than other women who might be available on campus. “They provide a different aspect for us,” says sophomore guard Kelley Suminski. “They are stronger and quicker and faster, so that makes us really work on our defense and strategy.”

Coaches look for men who won’t be so rough that they injure Stanford’s athletes—but won’t go easy on the women, either. “We never have that problem,” says assistant basketball coach Karen Middleton, who recruits the practice players. The men “go out and play hard. Otherwise, they are going to be embarrassed by what some of our players can do.”

In the midst of a fast-paced practice game, it’s difficult to tell which players are male and which are female. Zadok Sacks, ’03, doesn’t hesitate to knock into a female opponent or grab the back of her jersey as he is guarding her. “I think that’s why we are here—to play aggressively,” he says.

The men know their strengths—and weaknesses. “I don’t want this to sound arrogant, but we can jump higher and run faster,” says Will McLennan, ’05, his gray T-shirt soaked with sweat after a preseason scrimmage. The women’s fundamentals “are much better,” he says, “but in a fast break, we can almost always beat them down the court.”

That’s not to say that the teams with men always win. In early November, a group of two men and three women experienced a 32-3 drubbing at the hands of five women. “That’s the worst we’ve ever done,” Sacks admitted. “They definitely killed us this time.”

Men’s Basketball Gets into the Zone

“We’re rebuilding and we’re reloading,” senior guard Julius Barnes said after scoring a career-high 28 points—and tying the school record for three-pointers with eight—in Stanford’s 79-62 victory over Rice November 24. No kidding. Unranked before the season began, the men’s basketball team was expected to suffer mightily from the loss of would-be seniors Casey Jacobsen and Curtis Borchardt to the NBA. But the Cardinal jumped out to a winning record as of late November, first defeating Boston University, 61-57, then knocking off No. 11 Xavier, 63-62. On the way to the finals of the preseason NIT against North Carolina, which Stanford lost 74-57, the team upset No. 7 Florida, 69-65. Make that unranked and underestimated.

Farewell, Big Game Streak

Although junior wide receiver Teyo Johnson caught an 8-yard touchdown pass on Stanford’s opening possession, the football team lost the 105th Big Game, 30-7, before a sellout crowd at UC-Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium on November 23. Johnson caught five passes for 61 yards, but there were few other bright spots for the struggling Cardinal (2-9, 1-7 Pac-10). Cal’s Joe Igber, meanwhile, had the biggest rushing day in Big Game history, with 226 yards on 26 carries. The Axe, which had resided for seven years at Stanford, was paraded around at midfield.

Defeating Cal on the Way to the Postseason

Men’s water polo, women’s volleyball and women’s soccer, on the other hand, all won games against Cal before heading into postseason play. In the Big Splash, top-ranked Stanford improved its record to 16-6 by defeating No. 2 Cal, 8-7, scoring the final goal with five seconds remaining. But in the second round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament, the Golden Bears returned the favor, defeating Stanford, 8-7. In the four Stanford-Cal water polo matchups this year, each team won twice, each time by one goal. At press time, both teams were headed to the NCAA tournament, where a final showdown was possible. The women’s volleyball team closed out Pac-10 play with a 3-2 victory over Cal, powered by sophomore outside hitter Ogonna Nnamani’s 20 kills. The Cardinal entered the December NCAAs with a No. 3 ranking and a 27-4 record. Senior outside hitter Logan Tom became the third player in history to repeat as Pac-10 women’s volleyball player of the year. Her player-of-the-year counterpart on the soccer field, senior forward Marcia Wallis, netted both goals in Stanford’s 2-1 victory over Cal November 2. A few weeks later, Wallis scored the only goal in the No. 1 Cardinal’s third-round NCAA game against Notre Dame. But in the quarterfinals, the team fell to Portland, 4-2, in penalty kicks after double overtime failed to resolve a scoreless tie.