Women's cross country books ticket to nationals

By Natalie Clericuzio     11/18/10 6:00pm

In her four years of cross country competition, senior Nicole Mericle has had her fair share of successes, but this past weekend, she cemented her place among the best of the best in the history of the sport at Rice, winning her second South Central Regional championship meet by finishing in 20:16 minutes. Mericle is the only Owl to ever win the meet, much less win it twice in her career. Her first Regional championship title came in 2008.

Before the race, Mericle said that she just had to believe Head Coach Jim Bevan's words that she could run with anyone there. Ultimately as usual, Bevan was right.

"I had to trust that Jim had done the right thing in training with me," Mericle said. "I really had to kind of to trust Jim when he said that I could run with anyone in the race and so I just kind of went for it."

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However, Mericle was not the only Owl who excelled last Saturday - far from it. The team's performance captured second place in the regional meet and also qualified the team for the national meet in Terre Haute, Ind., on Tuesday. This will be the sixth time Rice has qualified for the national meet since the sport's inception at Rice in 1984.

Remarkably, in the six times Rice has attended the national meet, Mericle, senior Britany Williams, junior Allison Pye and junior Becky Wade have been on three of those teams.

Qualifying for the national meet is especially special to this group of four ladies, as they redshirted last season when Wade sustained a season-ending injury with hopes of being able to take the team back to nationals this season. And when Wade required surgery during the offseason for a torn labrum, no one, not even Bevan, believed there was a chance of these four running together again.

Then, against all odds, thanks to hard work Wade's recovery progressed ahead of schedule and Bevan started to think there was a chance Wade would be ready to run by Regionals.

"I started playing with the idea in my mind of Becky running two and a half weeks before the race," Bevan said. "I decided to give her a mini-test to see if she were ready and from then on it was just a progression."

On the Monday before the race, Bevan talked with Wade about competing and she ultimately decided that she was ready.

"At first, I was totally caught off guard and I was pretty shocked, because I had done just one real workout," Wade said. "What convinced me in the end to race was that I knew that Jim would never throw me into a situation that he didn't know I was prepared for and I also realized this was an incredible opportunity to race with these girls, two of which I'll never get to race with again in cross country."

Then Tuesday, Bevan told the rest of the team.

"When Jim told the team you could just see immediately everyone's face lit up completely," Mericle said. "It was definitely a very significant moment and kind of emotional and everyone's face lit up. People were kind of shocked but super excited at the same time."

With that excitement under their belts, the team was more than ready to compete, and compete they did. From the start of the race, Mericle, Williams and Pye were running with the front pack of runners. As the meet went on, Mericle and the leaders from Texas and Arkansas pulled ahead, with Williams close behind.

Wade ran with freshman Meredith Gamble and sophomore Marie Thompson, easing her way back into competition. However, at the 3,000-meter mark, Wade decided to test and see how many she could pass and began to speed up for the rest of the race, passing several along the way.

Meanwhile, Mericle stayed with the lead pack up through 5,000 meters, at which point she and the other top three began to pull away. Finally, with 150 meters left, Mericle kicked into a sprint to the finish to take first.

Behind Mericle's first-place finish, Williams was the second Rice finisher in eighth place overall, with a time of 20:48.

Bevan said that Williams' leadership has contributed as much as her times to the success of the team this season.

"A lot of what Britany has done this season has been behind the scenes," Bevan said. "But she really has been the glue that has held this team together all year long."

Behind Williams, redshirt sophomore Halsey Fowler placed 14th in 21:06, Wade placed 20th in 21:14, Pye was 30th at 21:26, Gamble 46th in 21:43 and Thompson rounded out the Owls placing 59th in 22:06. All Rice runners finished within the top half of all competitors.

However, even after the conclusion of the race, Rice had to wait several minutes to find out where the team placed and if they would be continuing on to Nationals. Finally, it was announced that Rice was headed out to Terre Haute again.

For the two seniors, Mericle and Williams, the team's second-place finish was the culmination of their careers at Rice.

"When they finally posted the results, Britany and I ran up there and we saw that we were second and we started jumping up and down and we ran to find the other girls," Mericle said. "Then I just grabbed Britany and said, 'Britany, we're going to Nationals. We did it!'"

For Rice, reaching the national meet attains the team's main goal for the season. The team still aims to improve on its top finish ever, achieved in 2007 when the team placed 16th overall. However, the team still has its sights set on taking down teams that defeated the Owls earlier in the year.

"There's a number of teams that got to Nationals because earlier in the year they beat us," Bevan said. "In the rematch we're seeking to turn the tide on some of the better teams in the country that beat us earlier in the year. With a little luck and if we're able to run well we have a chance to have equal to or improve on our best finish ever."

And of course, competing at the national meet itself is something that each member of the team will treasure. In Bevan's words, there's nothing like it in collegiate sports.

"In cross country there's no breaks, no timeouts," Bevan said. "It's just 31 of the best schools plus 38 of the best individuals in the country all lining up and it's just a mass of people maxing their bodies out over a race.

"There's no gaps and you don't always know how your teammates are doing or how you're doing relatively speaking in the race but yet you're pushing your body to the maximum.

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