2000 Women's Cross Country Season in Review

2000 Women's Season in Review
Entering the 2000 cross country season, the Nebraska women's cross country team knew it would be difficult to duplicate its success from 1999 when the team finished 16th at the national meet.

Despite returning four runners with national meet experience, the Huskers lacked depth and did not have a frontrunner that could immediately replace All-Big 12 performer Michelle Brooks.

However, Nebraska did return six letterwinners, including three runners that scored at the national meet, which left Coach Jay Dirksen optimistic about the season.

Seniors Amie Jorgensen and Jaimie Kruger returned to lead the Huskers in 2000, and both were among Nebraska?s top runners. Jorgensen turned in one of the best seasons of her career, highlighted by a strong race at the NCAA Midwest Regional meet, where she narrowly missed earning all-region honors with a 27th-place finish. She finished just one second behind teammate Ann Gaffigan, who finished in 25th place, securing the final all-region honor.

Although Kruger was slowed by a nagging hamstring injury, the Pierce, Neb., native was among the Huskers? top five runners throughout the season, and her best race may have been her final one. At the NCAA Midwest Regional in mid-November, Kruger finished 77th in 22:47, marking the first time in her cross country career that she ran under 23 minutes for 6,000 meters.

The Huskers kicked off the season at home with the Woody Greeno/Nebraska Invitational on Sept. 16. In the past Nebraska has dominated the meet, capturing nine of a possible 10 team titles, but an impressive performance by Kansas State, a team that finished fifth at the 1999 NCAA Championships, prevented the Huskers from reclaiming the team title with NU settling for second.

"Kansas State had an awesome team," Dirksen said following the meet. "We hope we're going to get our program up to that level again in the next couple of years. We've been there before, and I know we can get there again."

However the performance of Gaffigan, who earned an eighth-place finish with a gutsy effort, indicated to Dirksen that the Springfield, Ill., native would be a force throughout the season.

The Huskers' next competition would come a week later at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, Minn., where they would face seven ranked teams, including five ranked in the top 15 in the nation.

Not only did the Huskers have to face many of the nation?s best squads, but they also had to adjust to a longer distance, as the course was extended to 6,000-meters, the new distance for conference, regional and national meets. As was the case the week before, Nebraska's top five runners ran a consistent race, finishing less than a minute apart. But without a Husker among the top 30 finishers, Nebraska finished 19th among 29 teams.

Already short on numbers, the Husker squad shrank further when a stress fracture forced newcomer Morgan Hartman to hang up her spikes for the season after only three meets. Hartman first suffered the injury during the spring of her senior year of high school, and it flared up again early in the season.

With only nine healthy runners, it was vital that the remaining Huskers not only stay injury-free, but they must improve throughout the season. One athlete who continued to show signs of improvement was Kathryn Handrup, who emerged as the Huskers? lead runner early in the season. Her performance at the Murray Keatinge Invitational on Oct. 7 was typical of her running style. Rarely one to stick with the frontrunners early in a race, Handrup quickly reeled in the three-runner lead pack over the last quarter-mile of the 5,000-meter race to earn the first individual title of her career.

Nebraska placed five runners in the top 10, accumulating 22 points and earning its first victory of the season. Jorgensen, Gaffigan and Jenna Lucas finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively, while Kruger rounded out the scoring with a ninth-place finish.

After a strong team showing in Maine, the Huskers were primed for the stiff competition that awaited them at the Pre-NCAA meet in Ames, Iowa, on Oct. 14. Iowa State, which would host the NCAA Championships, had attracted some of the nation's top talent to the Memorial Classic.

With close to 400 runners converging on the Cyclones' campus, the Huskers found themselves spread too far across the course, a problem that would plague them much of the season. With nearly 175 runners separating Nebraska's top finisher from its fifth, NU finished in 30th place.

At the conference meet in Boulder, Colo., the Huskers were able to lessen the gap between runners, but with three Big 12 teams ranked in the top 25, the Huskers had to settle for a seventh-place finish.

"I thought we were doing pretty well until the conference meet, but we didn't handle the altitude very well," Dirksen said. "It's an awfully tough conference."

Although some Huskers struggled with the change in elevation, Jorgensen turned in her best performance ever at a conference meet. The Kearney, Neb., native had struggled with consistency during the season, but shined in Boulder. She was the second Husker to cross the line, behind only Handrup, the Huskers' top finisher much of the season.

After taking two weeks to regroup, the Huskers headed to Waterloo, Iowa, for the NCAA Midwest Region meet, one of nine regional meets used to determine the NCAA participants. The top two teams from each region, along with 13 at-large teams would comprise the field for nationals. Although an automatic bid was a long shot, Dirksen believed the Huskers had the ability to earn a top-five finish.

The Huskers received impressive performances from their top three runners, all of whom finished within seven seconds of each other, but a large spread between Nebraska?s fourth and fifth runners pushed the Huskers to eighth.

"I thought we really had a good chance to be in the top five in the region, but because of a lack of depth, if you have one person that struggles a little bit from where you expect her to be, it really hurts you," Dirksen said. "But our first three runners ran really well. They were all pretty solid."

Individually, Handrup finished 21st and Gaffigan 25th, to earn all-region honors, while Jorgensen narrowly missed the cut, finishing just one second behind Gaffigan in 27th place.

Despite the disappointing finish to the season, Dirksen believes the team made strides and gained some valuable experience, something they can build on for next season.

"I thought we had some people that really made some nice improvements," he said. "We just didn't have much depth. We were young and inexperienced.

"At the end of the season, Kathryn Handrup was really starting to run well, and Gaffigan had a super year as a freshman, one of the best freshmen we've had here."

Although the Huskers lost three seniors, they return talented runners like Handrup and Gaffigan, athletes that form a solid base from which to build.