Nov. 9, 2001
Lady Vol Cross Country
NCAA South Regional
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
November 10, 2001
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Lady Vols Hope To Continue Hot Streak
With a berth in the NCAA Championships on the line, the Lady Vol cross country team will travel to Tuscaloosa, Ala., for the NCAA South Regional on Saturday, Nov. 10, at 11 a.m. CT. The 6K race will be contested at the Harry Pritchett Golf Course at the University of Alabama. The race will determine the two teams that will receive the region's automatic bids to the NCAA meet. The top four individuals not on advancing teams will also participate in the national championship meet, while both teams and individuals have a chance for at-large bids.
In 2000, Tennessee did not have the entire team compete in the South Regional. Only Sharon Dickie, Jessica Southers and Erin Anderson ran in the race, which was also held at the Henry Pritchett Golf Course.
Orange and White To Watch
One advantage that the Lady Vols have coming into the NCAA South Regional is the presence of defending event champion Sharon Dickie. The junior won the race last year on her way to her second career All-Region honors. She was also named the NCAA South Region Athlete of the Year and received a berth in the NCAA Championships where she earned All-America honors.
Another standout Lady Vol to keep an eye on is freshman Brooke Novak. The Kaukauna, Wis., native stepped up in her first "big" collegiate race as she finished 10th at the SEC Championships to earn the first all-conference honors of her young career. Sophomore Jessica Southers will also make waves after pulling down the first All-SEC accolade of her career with a 13th-place finish at the conference race.
Other top-25 finishers from the SEC meet will also be counted on to score key points at the regional meet. Sophomore Christy Baird finished 20th while freshman Elizabeth McCalley was 25th. Sophomore Erin Anderson and junior Amber Ayub add key depth and will continue to help the Lady Vol squad overall.
Returning To The Top...
The SEC Championships on Oct. 29 in Auburn, Ala., may well have been a sign of things to come for the Lady Vol cross country team. The squad finished second behind perennial power Arkansas, but well ahead of regional foes Florida and Auburn. The Lady Vols were paced by junior All-American Sharon Dickie who recorded her second consecutive third-place finish at the SEC meet.
UT's runner-up finish was its best since winning the league crown in 1990. Placing three runners on the All-SEC list is also Tennessee's best effort since having four harriers named all-conference in 1990. A sign of the Lady Vols strength is the fact that all five point-scorers finished among the top 25 runners.
2001 Regular Season Recap
Prior to the championship season, Tennessee had a solid start to the 2001 cross country schedule. The Lady Vols had a pair of individual title winners in freshman Brooke Novak in the Mountaineer Open and junior Sharon Dickie in the Commodore Invitational. Novak also earned SEC Athlete of the Week honors for her performance.
As a team, the Lady Vols recorded a pair of fourth-place finishes at the Mountaineer Open and Commodore Invitational. Then, the Orange and White posted an eighth-place mark at the Auburn Invitational before finishing 16th in the Silver division of the Furman Invitational.
The Furman Invite may be Tennessee's lowest team finish of the year, but it is without a doubt its best team effort. Battling 15 teams that were either nationally-ranked or receiving votes, the Lady Vols managed an upset of No. 25 Baylor and a win over Florida State, which was ranked first in the South Region.
A Full Squad?
The SEC Championships signaled just the second meet of the season where the Lady Vols fielded their full cross country squad. Junior Sharon Dickie and sophomore Christy Baird missed the first meet of the year, the Mountaineer Open, as part of their training schedules. Then, freshman Brooke Novak missed the Commodore Invitational and the Auburn Invitational as part of her training slate and to allow time to recover from a leg injury. Sophomore Jessica Southers also missed the first race of her young Lady Vol career at the Commodore Invitational as a part of her training.
Movin' On Up...
Noting that they were part of the only region in the NCAA that did not conduct a regional coaches' poll, the South Region coaches decided to correct that for the 2001 season. In the poll of seven region coaches, the Lady Vols started the season in seventh and moved to fifth before landing at third following the SEC Championship meet on Oct. 29. The two key positions in the region are the top-two spots as the first and second-place teams at the NCAA South Regional race advance automatically to the NCAA Championships.
Debunking The Preseason Coaches' Poll
While the accuracy of the regional poll will be determined at this weekend, the accuracy of the SEC Preseason Coaches' Poll was thrown out the window at the conference meet on Oct. 29. Following an eighth-place finish in 2000, the Lady Vols were rated sixth in the opinion of the coaches, while Arkansas was picked to win its fourth straight crown. Tennessee proved its critics wrong by jumping up to a second-place finish. Other surprises included Auburn, the preseason No. 2 team, which finished fourth and Alabama, selected as the No. 4 squad entering the year, which finished 11th.
Lady Vols in the NCAA Regionals
Despite not competing as a team at the NCAA South Regional during the 2000 season, the Lady Vols have still had several highlights at the district meets over the years. In 2000, Sharon Dickie won the event to become the first Lady Vol to win a region meet since Brenda Webb was victorious as an AIAW runner in 1977. Tennessee's best team finish over the past ten years was in 1998 when the squad was third and advanced to the NCAA meet in Lawrence, Kan. Dickie, who redshirted in 1999, was a member of that squad. Tennessee has won one regional meet, the 1983 District III Championships.
Dickie Making Her Mark
Junior Sharon Dickie is well on her way to making her place in the Tennessee record book. She is already a three-time All-SEC and two-time all-region honoree and she notched the first All-America honor of her career in 2000. She was the first Lady Vol to earn All-America accolades since 1989 and logged Tennessee's first regional win since Brenda Webb won the AIAW Region 2 title in 1977. The Grand Blanc, Mich., native is in her second season back in action after redshirting the entire 1999 cross country and track and field seasons with a hip injury.
Scouting the Field
In order for the Lady Vols to post the hoped for top-two finish in the region, the team will have a lot of work to do against a tough field. The UT runners are familiar with the Alabama course as the team ran twice there last year. The squad will face its stiffest competition from Georgia Tech and South Florida, the region's two NCAA teams from last year, as well as Florida State and Florida.
Rookie of the Year?
Freshman Brooke Novak is one her way to a fine rookie campaign, but her first year has not been without some bumps in the road. The Kaukauna, Wis., native has struggled with a few injuries while making an adjustment to the college running game. Novak wasted no time getting off to a hot start as she recorded her first collegiate win in her first race. She grabbed the Mountaineer Open title with a clocking of 17:39 to notch the fifth-fastest time ever run on the course at Appalachian State. A Track and Field News All-American in high school, Novak has added to her honor chest with SEC and Lady Vol Athlete of the Week honors. She was also a strong finisher in her first conference championship meet as she finished 10th at the SEC Championships to earn All-SEC accolades.
Youngsters Taking Charge
In addition to Novak, several other Tennessee underclassmen have given a big boost to the Knoxville clan. Freshman Elizabeth McCalley, a Knoxville native, has been the biggest surprise on the squad this year. She has blown past all of the coaching staff's expectations on her way to securing a place as Tennessee's second or third finisher in every race this season. She took 25th at the SEC Championships to help Tennessee to a second-place finish. Sophomores Erin Anderson and Jessica Southers have also had solid second seasons. Anderson has been running at the three or four spot for UT while Southers has been everywhere from second to fourth on the Tennessee squad this season. Southers earned her first career All-SEC honor as she finished 13th at the SEC Championships.
Help From Everywhere
With a thin squad for the past couple of seasons, Lady Vol cross country coach Rodney Rothoff has raided the track team roster for additional help. Junior Kameisha Bennett ran a pair of races for the cross country team while freshman Nicole Cook competed three times. The duo will both be 800-meter standouts for the Lady Vol track team this fall. Sophomore Amy Ranker also trained with the cross country squad after competing in track and field last year for UT. Monique Berarducci, a freshman from Knoxville, and junior Rebecca Collins also trained on the cross country course but did not compete this fall and are looking ahead to the 2002 indoor and outdoor seasons.
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