Skieresz's streak ends at 13

Arizona Daily Wildcat Amy Skieresz

The British Empire eventually crumbled. UCLA's domination of NCAA men's basketball came to a close. The New York Yankees' monopoly on the World Series faded with time.

Yesterday, one woman's reign over her sport came to abrupt halt, far sooner than anyone had anticipated.

Amy Skieresz had gone into the NCAA Cross Country Championships with 13 consecutive wins, including last year's title, and her coach called her "the overwhelming favorite."

Yet she had always maintained that anyone could come up and surprise her at anytime.

For the UA junior that time was yesterday in Greenville, S.C. as she failed to win back-to-back NCAA titles.

"I was just running," she said. "I am all gone. It was the best I had. I guess it wasn't my particular day."

Skieresz finished second with a time of 16 minutes, 39 seconds. She lost by 10 seconds to Villanova's Carrie Tollefson, who was second to Skieresz in 1996.

"It was tough," Skieresz said. "One of the toughest I've ever had. I had to work. I had to go out from the beginning."

Skieresz had an early lead, but unlike all the runners she had faced this season, Tollefson hung with her and eventually passed her around the halfway point. Skieresz said she could hear Tollefson's coach yelling "if you stay with her here, you've got her."

"I don't have the leg speed that the 1,500 (meter) runners have," Skieresz said, explaining why she couldn't close the gap on Tollefson.

Tollefson's time of 16:29 set a new Furman University course record by four seconds.

"I never thought I had her (Skieresz) coming back at me," Tollefson said. "I just tried to close the gap with her and I guess that is what I did. I never had her where I wanted her, which is behind me. I hoped to out-kick her. I just held on."

In her three years of competition Skieresz has never finished lower than second. The loss was her first since coming in second at the 1995 NCAA Championships behind Wisconsin's Kathy Butler.

"She is awesome. She is definitely one of my heroes because of what she has accomplished," Tollefson said.

Unlike the past two years, Skieresz did not have her teammates to cheer her on. The UA women failed to qualify for nationals after coming in fourth at the Far West Regional on Nov. 15.

"Actually, it's a sense of relief," Skieresz said of the defeat. "I'm not crushed. It's not the end of the world for me. I knew one day this would happen, I just didn't know when."

The Brigham Young women's team pulled an upset, beating defending champion Stanford 100 to 102. Colorado (108) finished third.

The Pacific 10 Conference's other two representatives in the women's team race were Oregon (eighth, 234) and Washington (14th, 341).

On the men's side, UA junior Abdi Abdirahman was the lone Wildcat at the meet. He finished seventh with a time of 29:26, capping a surprising season.

Abdirahman transferred to UA from Pima Community College this year and went on to become the Wildcats' top runner. He won the first two meets of the year for UA and then paced the team at every meet thereafter.

His third place finish at the regional allowed him to go to nationals as an individual.

Abdirahman was only 32 seconds behind UCLA's Mebrahtom Keflizighi (28:54), who also beat Abdirahman at the Far West Regional, and, like Tollefson, set a new course record.

Stanford won the men's team title with 53 points, squeaking past Arkansas (56). The Oregon men finished in the same spot as the Oregon women, eighth, with a score of 266.