Erase the Apple Cup from your minds. As predicted, the UW women's cross-country team took first place at the NCAA meet in Terre Haute, Indiana today. The team prevailed with low score of 79 points, amassed by adding up the placings of its first five runners over the 6K course (about four miles). As has been the case all season, two frosh paced the squad, which finished thusly in the team scoring (point tallies omit runners who compete without a full team):

5) Christine Babcock (7th place overall)
9) Kendra Schaaf (12th overall)
19) Marie Lawrence
20) Katie Follett
26) Amanda Miller

See here for the U-Dub's official results. Among the Husky men in the meet, Jake Schmitt finished best at 58th overall. More notable in fourth overall was David Kinsella, an Eastsider who went to Inglemoor High School, now competing for the University of Portland. Ironically, given that none of UW coach Greg Metcalf's best men or women are from the Puget Sound area, that's one top recruit who apparently ran away from him.

Wenatchee's Amanda Miller. Photo: UW Sports Information Dept

The penultimate step before the NCAA cross-country championships (Mon. Nov. 24) in Indiana was held today at Stanford. The UW women's squad, No. 1-rated in the nation, did not disappoint. Though coach Greg Metcalf opted to rest two of his best runners, the Huskies dominated the meet by sweeping places 3 through 7. You can read the official UW summary here, and here are the scoring results:

1 Alex Kosinski, Oregon 19:59
2 Nicole Blood Oregon 20:01
3 Christine Babcock, Washington 20:02
4 Marie Lawrence, Washington 20:03
5 Katie Follett, Washington 20:07
6 Anita Campbell, Washington 20:12
7 Amanda Miller, Washington 20:13

In XC, low score wins, and scoring is an aggregate of the top five members of the squad. Thus, the Huskies tallied 25 points, far ahead of Oregon's 62 points and Stanford's 91 points. (At the prior Pac 10 meet, the UW women scored an unprecedented 15 points sweeping the first five places.) The UW men's squad finished a very respectable fifth in this NCAA regional meet.

Notably absent for the UW women was Canadian frosh phenom Kendra Schaaf, who won the Pac 10 meet, and sophomore Lauren Saylor (12th at Pac 10). Schaaf, if she holds form, could be a top 3 finisher at NCAAs. (Sally Kipyego, a Kenyan running for Texas Tech, is favored to win.)

Here's a trivia question that I can't answer: When was the last time the UW won a national championship in any team sport? Because it looks like it's about to happen for the first time in a very, very long time.

That's what some athletic experts are claiming. So how to warm up? Jog lightly, and maybe make like a spider too.

Despite our shameless boosterism, Fife High football coach Kent Nevin edged out Blanchet High (alma mater of both yours truly and Damon Agnos) cross country coach John O'Leary for KIRO-710's coach of the year. O'Leary, who finished a close second, will have a chance to redeem himself this weekend at the state meet in Pasco, for which the Braves have qualified for 31 consecutive years.

Photo: Rick RussellPhoto.com

After today's stunning Pac-10 cross country championship result in Springfield, Oregon, the UW women's squad is being called "the greatest team in history"--granted, with a question mark--by influential running site LetsRun.com. In winning the meet, and destroying second place Oregon, the Huskies scored 15 points. Low score wins in cross country, by adding up the first five finishers on a squad. Thus, by sweeping places one through five (plus non-scoring six!), the UW gals aced the competition and established themselves as favorites to win a national title at the NCAA meet in Indiana later in November. (The men's team finished a very respectable third after Oregon and Stanford.)

Fifteen points is unprecedented in a Pac-10 or any major college XC meet. No men's or women's team has ever done that before in Pac-10 history. It's the kind of score a good high-school team might inflict against another school that accidentally brought the drama club to compete.

Full results here from the UW. As previously reported, the squad is already No. 1 ranked in the country. The drama at NCAAs in Terre Haute may be to see how low a score the runners can score. Again Canadian frosh runner Kendra Schaaf led the team; clearly she's got a realistic chance of winning at nationals, too. Coach Greg Metcalf must be very pleased. Here are the top seven Husky finishers at today's Pac-10 meet, ranked by their overall placing and time for the six kilometer course (about four miles):

1) Kendra Schaaf, 19:24
2) Marie Lawrence, 19:52
3) Christine Babcock, 19:53
4) Anita Campbell, 19:57
5) Katie Follett, 20:04
6) Amanda Miller, 20:10
12) Lauren Saylor, 20:31

Yes, he's one of my best friends, hence my shameless boosterism. He's also an amazing cross country coach, both at Blanchet High School, where his team won state in his first year at the controls, and at St. John's in Greenwood, where he teaches P.E. John also bears the distinction of being the best 150-lb. pickup basketball rebounder in American history, due largely to his dagger-like elbows (and the fact that he's inevitably in the best shape of anyone on the floor). Anyhoo, KIRO's Ron & Don Show is hosting a ballot that will result in the naming of the area's best youth coach, and Johnny Oates has gotta be the guy. So vote for John!

Husky junior Katie Follett, wearing number bib number 1588, finished eighth. Photo: UW Sports Information Dept.

Yes, the news has been terrible this season so far as Husky football is concerned. But the UW women's cross-country team is now the No. 1 ranked squad in the nation following this weekend's "Pre-Nat" meet in Indiana. Basically, the best XC teams in the nation gather for a rehearsal over the same NCAA championship course that'll be contested in Terre Haute next month. The Husky harriers won the Pre-National meet with an amazing score of only 36 points. In cross-country, low score wins: the first runner get one point, the second two, and so on. The top five members on each team score. At such a big competitive meet, the winning score is usually 100-plus.

Second place went to Villanova with 126. Mighty Stanford finished in seventh with 248 points. And our women scored 36! This by placing four runners in the top 10 with the fifth scoring runner inside the top 20. You can read the full results here on the UW's site.

Coach Greg Metcalf now looks like a recruiting genius, since he landed two frosh phenoms: Kendra Schaaf, the best prep distance runner in Canada, who finished third at Pre-Nats; and Californian Christine Babcock, fourth, who competed in the Olympic Trials this summer.

The team's upcoming big meets are the Pac-10s on Oct. 31 in Springfield; NCAA Western Division Nov. 15 at Stanford; then the NCAA finals back in Terre Haute on Nov. 24. We hate to think what the football squad's record will be at that point. I would advise purple-and-gold boosters to switch loyalties among UW teams now, especially those looking for an excuse to wave around those giant foam No. 1 fingers.

(Photo: www.LetsRun.com)

It's a mixed blessing for the UW distance squads to be in the toughest conference in the NCAAs. That means competing against the likes of Oregon and Stanford, making it difficult to even qualify for the national cross country championships, which were held yesterday in Terre Haute, Indiana. Coach Greg Metcalf's women's team did qualify for the meet, where their top five scoring runners ran in a tight two-minute bunch (low score wins in XC). As a result, the ladies placed eighth, the best-ever result at nationals. (Ahead were three Pac-10 teams, including first-place Stanford.) Promisingly, only one member of the seven-woman UW team is a senior. And the top two finishers will be back for next year: Soph Katie Follett (pictured wearing number 728) finished 19th, just ahead of junior Anita Campbell. They're from Colorado and Canada, respectively; while two teammates hail from Kennewick and Wenatchee. It points to the importance of recruiting in a sport that's fairly international (the women's repeat winner is a Kenyan competing for Texas Tech). Most of the UW men's squad come from local high schools, while most of the women do not. Coaches at other universities nationwide are competing with Metcalf for the top local high-school distance prospects each season. It's worth noting that on the men's side in Indiana, the best Northwest finisher was David Kinsella in eighth for U of Portland. He's from Inglemoor HS, class of 2004, one of the good ones who got away from the U-Dub.