Champions Beat Odds Mccoskey, Olson Overcome Hardship
The pollsters got it right Saturday when the top-ranked Calvin College men and Middlebury College women won NCAA Division III team cross country championships.
And individual winners Tim McCoskey of North Central College and Johanna Olson of Luther College lent a feel-good aura to the meet by triumphing over personal adversity.
A month and a half earlier, McCoskey underwent hernia surgery. At snow-dusted Wandermere Golf Course, with the temperature at 35 degrees, he won the 8,000-meter race by nearly 10 seconds.
His success, however, pales in comparison to that of Olson. She won at 5,000 meters three years to the day after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor.
Calvin College defeated second-ranked Keene State 65-87 and Middlebury beat New England regional rival Williams College 103-123 for their titles.
Women
Olson may have been considered a longshot to become an NCAA cross country champ.
It shouldn’t have been surprising after the odds she overcame to accomplish her wire-to-wire triumph.
Olson’s tumor returned and she missed her entire sophomore season while enduring six months of radiation treatment.
“Right now, I’m fine,” said Olson. “The tumor shrunk and hasn’t changed since.”
Last year, she earned All-America status, finishing 23rd in nationals, and won the Honda Inspiration Award presented to the year’s collegiate woman athlete who has overcome great physical adversity.
Saturday, she forced the pace, winning by 16 seconds over Heidi Wolfsberger of Moravian and Joey Shapiro of Langley, Wash., and Williams College.
“Every meet, I just like to go out with the group in the first mile and however I feel, go from there,” she said. “I’ve never really had a strategy.”
Neither did Middlebury College runners Kasie Wallace and Kate Irvin, who remembered dashed goals in a race as freshmen and have not been outcome-oriented since. The outcome, however, was everything they’d hoped for.
“We were ranked no. 1 all year, but because teams never compete against each other, normally, it’s very arbitrary,” said coach Terry Aldrich. “We really had to get here to see where we stood.”
With the title, Wallace and Irvin now have run on top-seven national finishers in each of their four years.
Men
Five days after his surgery, McCoskey was jogging. Within a week, he was training. Six weeks later, he’s North Central College’s seventh individual national champion harrier.
He tucked into the pack for 2 miles before taking command to beat Calvin’s Dan Hoekstra and Jesse Drake of Wisconsin-Steven Point.
“I expected to do well,” he said. “I was kind of disappointed the team didn’t do as well as we’d hoped.”
North Central finished fourth, after winning the last three NCAA Division III championships.
Top-ranked Calvin College ended the streak and culminated a 15-year quest for a national title.
“This whole season everything’s gone perfect,” said Hoekstra. “In the past, we’ve had shots at it but couldn’t get things to pull together.”
The runners had a rabid cheering section of bare-chested, horn-tooting, war-painted teammates. A tight pack, that included high finishes by Calvin’s 2-through-5 scorers, made the difference.
Division II
Adams (Colo.) State senior Jason Hubbard, of Colville, finished 14th at the Division II championships in Chino, Calif. Hubbard, an eight-time AllAmerican, was the top placer for the Grizzlies, who finished third in the team race. Western State of Colorado won.