Christian Goys first-place finish led Illinois State to the 2002 Missouri Valley Conference Mens Cross Country title Saturday in Terre Haute.
Goy, the 2002 NCAA Indoor Mile Champion, helped the Redbirds outdistance second place Drake with 44 points to the Bulldogs 47. The Birds took five of the top 16 places, including an 8-9-10 parade finish by senior Walter Ogala, junior Allan Kipchoge and junior Walker Eye, respectively. Freshman Jeremy Doherty ranked 16th to round out the five scoring runners for the Redbirds.
Completing the 8,000 meters in 24:48.20, Goy had a 12-second lead over runner-up Kjetil Ramstad of Drake. Goy placed this championship above his individual NCAA title on his list of Redbird running memories.
If you win a conference title as a team, its more important than any individual title anyone could win at any level, said Goy. It just feels so much better to win with your teammates. (The title) belongs to all of those who run with me. We all said we wanted to win and we did the work together. We needed everybodys best today and we got that.
Redbird coach Chris Bailey knows that championship feeling; he was the individual Valley champion in 1996 and 1997 as an Illinois State runner.
It was a dogfight. Its a different level of experience for me, said Bailey, ISUs first-year cross country coach under the direction of head track and field coach Elvis Forde. This is a great group of guys who knew what their goal was, stayed strong through hard times and won.
Bailey maintains a healthy respect for Goy.
Christian was Christian, said Bailey. He always wants to run and compete. He ran with a really good runner (Ramstad) from Drake. In the last 1,000 meters he pulled away and finished strong.
As projected in the pre-meet poll of coaches, the Redbird womens team finished third behind champion Southwest Missouri State and runner-up Bradley. Freshman Kelli Schulte finished fourth individually--and No. 1 among freshmen--while her classmate, Betsy McDonald, was 16th, giving the Redbird two of the top three freshman finishers. Sophomore Diana Ainsley was the other Top 20 finisher for Redbird women, taking 12th place. Bailey was hoping for a higher finish, but still was proud of how his womens team did against a tough field.
They went out hard and thats a testament to how tough they are, said Bailey. They showed a lot of determination by going out with the leaders at the start. I couldnt ask for anything more from them. Southwest and Bradley had a little more experience and I think that was the difference.
By capturing the 109th league team championship in Illinois States two decades of conference competition, the mens cross country program now stands alone at the top of the impressive list of Redbird team league titles with 10 first-place finishes.
