The Hopkins women’s cross country team took home its second national title at the NCAA Cross Country Championships at Hanover College on Saturday, Nov. 3.
Hopkins entered the championships as the top seed and defending champions. Naturally, every other team was looking to take them down.
“The night before the championship we had our usual coaches-team meeting where [Head Coach Bobby Van Allen] told us that we were going into this thing with a huge target on our backs,” senior Holly Clarke said. “He said, and I quote, ‘There are 31 other teams that want to be us right now. But I don’t want to be anybody except for us.’”
After writing each other letters of encouragement, the girls prepared for the national championship the next day. Sophomore Hannah Oneda took everything in at the starting line.
“I just remember standing at the starting line and looking off,” Oneda said. “It’s completely empty when you look forward and then you look to your right and left, and there are just tons of girls. Before every race I tell myself that we’re all trying to do the same thing. No matter how scared you are, the person next to you is just as scared.”
The final race of the season then began as the gun sounded. Because of the hectic conditions, Van Allen found the task of coaching to be more challenging than normal.
“I was trying to run all over the place,” Van Allen said. “At the NCAA Championships it’s a little different than every other meet we go to due to the fact that there are 5,000 spectators running all over the place. It was pretty difficult for me as a coach to communicate with any of the runners during the race, so I was just trying to find areas on the course I could get to where there were as few people as possible so I could let them know exactly how they were doing and try to give them some words of encouragement.”
The Blue Jays were in a good position in the beginning until something went wrong.
“No matter where you were you could see somebody on my team, so I had a feeling we were doing it,” senior Annie Monagle said. “Actually when I passed Holly, that was the first time I thought it was a little worrisome because I don’t think I’ve ever passed her in a race.”
Clarke was not feeling well at the starting line, and a little over halfway into the race, her “body went into shock.”
“I don’t remember much of the race from 5k to the medical tent,” Clarke said. “During the race I was in fifth place until the 4k, and at that point I just dropped farther and farther back. My entire body tightened up, which screwed up my running stride. Probably the worst I’ve ever felt during a cross race before.”
Oneda would lead the Blue Jays with a fourth place finish overall—the program’s best finish in NCAA championship history.
“I get to the finish line and I can barely move, so I grab a chair and sit down,” Oneda said. “Then I look up at the scoreboard, and nothing is there yet. My dad comes up to me, and all the parents are there and they’re like, ‘Good job!’ Then I was like, ‘No no no, did we win?’ And they’re like, ‘Of course you did!’ And I was like ‘What?’ And they’re like, ‘ Wait wait wait, we don’t know for sure, but of course you did!’ And I was like, ‘You can’t do that!’”
Monagle and junior Frances Loeb would finish next at 14th and 15th overall, respectively. They would be followed by Clarke at 38th and junior Ashley Murphy at 46th.
Senior Abby Flock and freshman Tess Meehan were the final two Blue Jays to cross the line, coming in at 136th and 137th, respectively. Hopkins was the only team to place five runners in the top 50.
After the final runners finished, confusion ensued.
“I crossed the finish line, and Hannah was sitting on the side line just freaking out,” Flock said. “Then Hannah, Tess and I walk over by the medical tent, but they wouldn’t let us in to see [Clarke]. So we’re freaking out because we think Holly is dead, we’re not sure if we won, and we just don’t know what’s going on.”
It was only when Monagle found out the good news did everyone calm down.
“That’s when I saw Bobby, and he was like, ‘We did it!’,” Monagle said. “So I gave him a big hug, and that’s when everyone came over, and our whole Hopkins team went inside the medical tent, which you aren’t supposed to do.”
While the Blue Jays got kicked out of the tent, they would repeat as national champions, besting second place Williams College by 52 points and third place Middlebury College by 100 points.
Van Allen was named the National Women’s Coach of the Year for the second year in a row.
Despite becoming the first repeat national champs since 2001, the team is already focusing on a possible three-peat. However, Oneda wants even more.
“We’re becoming a dynasty,” Oneda said. “I’m saying two down, two to go. I want to win all four years that I’m here.”
