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Alistair
Cragg finishes on top and Nate Brannen repeats on NCAA's second day
by
Parker Morse
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Alistair
Cragg (left) pushed the pace for the last 2,000m of the 3,000m,
taking the sting out of Nick Willis' kick.
(Both photos: Alison Wade/New York Road Runners)
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Cragg
held off Willis on the final lap and won his fifth NCAA Indoor
title.
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University
of Arkansas senior Alistair Cragg ended a tremendous indoor track
career in Fayetteville as a winner, running the kick out of Michigan's
Nick Willis to defend his NCAA Indoor 3,000m title less than 24
hours after winning his third-consecutive 5,000m title. The only
Arkansas athlete with more indoor NCAA championships titles is jumper
Erick Walder, who won the long jump and triple jump for three years
between 1992 and 1994.
Facing
Willis was a puzzle for which Cragg and his coach, John McDonnell,
needed an inventive solution. Willis had broken Cragg's 3,000m collegiate
record in January (though Cragg recovered it when he ran 7:38.59
in mid-February), so he could handle a fast pace. And he proved
on Friday night, when he demolished the Razorbacks' DMR in the 1,600m
leg, that he had a kick to be reckoned with. McDonnell and Cragg
needed to neutralize that kick without forcing Cragg to grind for
all fifteen laps.
The
solution was somewhere in between. "We contemplated tactics
through the week," Cragg explained after the race. "By
Wednesday I said, 'I don't want to think anymore.' This morning
I got up with an idea, and [Coach McDonnell] got up with an idea,
and it was the exact same idea. We weren't going to do the first
[kilometer] hard. I was [originally] going to do the whole thing
hard, but three Ks out there in front at 60, 61 seconds [per 400m],
well, my name isn't Haile Gebrselassie or Kenenisa Bekele."
So Cragg sat back in the field and allowed the pace to creep through
the first kilometer before he moved to the front and began bearing
down. Willis responded immediately to Cragg's move, as did Stanford's
Don Sage, but Sage couldn't hold on as Cragg continued to increase
the pace.
Willis,
on the other hand, hung on tenaciously. "I spent half the race
thinking of excuses," said Cragg. "I was scared I was
going to lose in my very last race [in front of the Tyson Center
crowd]." With four laps to go, Cragg was still ratcheting up,
the crowd was on their feet, and Willis, though riveted to Cragg's
shoulder, was fully extended. When the pair reached the bell without
Willis delivering the coup de grace, Cragg committed fully, and
actually began to pull away on the final lap. To the enthusiastic
approval of the crowd, he came home in 7:55.29, with Willis a second
back in 7:56.44.
"I'm
just glad he didn't go around me at the end," said Cragg. "I
was expecting it, and expecting it, but it never came." About
his five indoor titles, Cragg observed, "They got harder and
harder. The first one [the 5,000m in 2002] was the easiest."
Willis'
teammate Nate Brannen was the other successful defender on the day,
winning a perfectly executed 800m in 1:47.61. "I was a little
worried, because I didn't get much sleep last night. Drug testing
[after the DMR] took forever. My coach [Ron Warhurst] came up with
a good plan and it worked perfectly. I made my move in the last
150 meters, and it worked. I couldn't ask for anything else."
Brannen took the lead at the top of the backstretch in the final
lap and powered by the field, arriving at the homestretch in the
lead and holding off Kansas State's Christian Smith, who finished
second in 1:48.18. Florida's Moise Joseph rounded out the top three
with a 1:48.24.
Chris
Mulvaney of Arkansas, defending champion in the men's mile, carried
the same expectations of a defense that Cragg and Brannen did, but
the race shaped up unfavorably for the senior. At the start, Montana's
Scott McGowan made the pace, with Mulvaney well-positioned on his
shoulder to cover any moves and Eric Garner of Washington and Erik
Schmidt of Navy in pursuit. This group passed halfway in 2:02.7.
With three laps remaining, Indiana's Sean Jefferson powered in to
the lead, and though McGowan and BYU's Nathan Robison responded,
Jefferson immediately opened a gap. He reached three quarters in
3:02, ran the next lap in 28 seconds and the final one in 30 to
stop the clock at 4:00.16. Robison took second by the slimmest of
margins in 4:01.99 over Oklahoma State's Jason Woolhouse (4:02.00).
Mulvaney slid to a non-scoring ninth.
Those
missing points turned out to be just another blow in Arkansas' unsuccessful
defense of their team title. Cragg's victory put them into the lead,
five points up on Florida, but LSU scored 22 points in the triple
jump to produce a marginal lead entering the final event. Florida
and LSU both had teams in the 4x400m relay, and Arkansas did not.
Florida's fourth-place relay gave them the five points they needed
to tie Arkansas for second at 38 points, but .15 seconds later,
LSU took fifth, and the championship by six and a half points.
(Posted
March 13, 2004)
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