Nov. 18, 2006

Central's Berry top freshman at NCAA meet

WEST CHESTER, OHIO-Central College's Angie Berry of Indianola was the fastest freshman in the field, posting a surprisingly strong 37th-place finish in her debut at a soggy NCAA Division III cross country championship meet Saturday. Meanwhile Central senior Adam Wolf of Corning was 207th as he made the first appearance in the men's championship meet by a Dutch runner since 1994. There were 279 runners in both fields.

Racing on a mud-drenched 6,000-meter course, Berry finished in 23:59, just 5 seconds out of 35th place, which would have given her All-America distinction.     Wolf finished in 29:40 on the men's 8,000-meter course.

"It was really just a quagmire out there," assistant coach Stephen Fyfe said. "There was standing water in several different places and lots and lots of mud. Several people lost their shoes during the race and ended up running it barefoot."

Berry, the first Central freshman to run at a national cross country meet since 1981, was 12 seconds ahead of the next freshman finisher, North Central (Ill.) College's Amanda Laesch, who was 53rd. Sarah Zerzan of Willamette (Ore.) was the winner in 22:31. Berry was the second Iowa Conference finisher behind Luther sophomore Janet Dobyns, who was 23rd in 23:38.

"Angie had a wonderful race," Fyfe said. "She handled the experience really well. She just stepped up to the line and ran a really strong race.

"This is going to be a great building block for her. I can't wait to see what she does in track."
Berry was excited as well.
"I felt like I got out pretty well," she said. "I was in the position I wanted to be in for most of the race. Toward the end, I ran out of what I needed to have for the kick coming into the home stretch, but for my first year, I was pretty happy with the way things worked out."

Wolf closed one of the top Central men's cross country careers in several years.
"I know Adam's probably a little disappointed," Fyfe said. "I know he wanted to run better and expected to run better. But I'm really happy that with all he's done over the last four years that he got to finish his career at the national meet. I think that was a big deal. He's been the backbone of our program for four years and he's going to be really hard to replace."

The conditions were unlike any Wolf has previously encountered in a big race.
"It was a pretty interesting way to end my career," he said. "I would have liked to do better, but you take what you can get."

Calvin (Mich.) won the men's title with Iowa Conference rival Luther placing sixth. Middlebury (Vt.) was the women's champion with Luther in 11th.