IT WASN'T ABOUT revenge. But it was payback all the same.
At last month's NCAA indoor championships, Tennessee's Sarah Bowman passed Michigan's Nicole Edwards in the stretch to win the women's Distance Medley Relay. Yesterday at Franklin Field, it came down to those two in the marquee first-day Championship of America event at the Penn Relays Carnival. Only this time, it was Bowman who led with a half-lap to go in the closing 1,600-meter leg. And Edwards who did the outkicking from there.
"It's not so much about getting even, at least [not] for me," said Edwards, a redshirt junior from Western Canada. "I just want to win every time. That's always what I want. Sometimes, it's more realistic than other times. If she's the person in front of me, then obviously I want to beat her. I'm sure it's the same thing for her."
Last April, Bowman outraced Villanova's Frances Koons to the line. Michigan didn't even enter the DMR here last year but won the 4 x 1,500 meters and the 4 x 800. This year, they're skipping the latter.
"We just don't want to bite off more than we can chew," explained associate head coach Mike McGuire. "We think we had the personnel last year [to run in all three], but we decided long before that we had some people with injury history, and we didn't want to overextend it. So we picked two.
"This year, same thing. We have some people who we think can go beyond the collegiate season. We're trying to balance our demands we put on these young ladies. All those decisions were talked about. There's a rhyme and reason to it. Months ago, we were pretty sure we were only going to run two. And we knew it was probably these two, 6 or 8 weeks out."
Michigan's time of 10 minutes, 49.58 seconds was the second-fastest ever. Villanova's 10:48.38, set in 1988, remains the standard. But the Wolverines did break a school record by nearly 10 seconds.
Freshman Danielle Tauro, from South Jersey, started it off with a 3:22.2 in the 1,200. Serita Williams, the lone senior in the group, followed with a 53.4 in the 400. And Geena Gall covered the 800 in 2:02.1, which left the Wolverines in a virtual dead heat for the lead. But Edwards was content to let Bowman run in front, if only by the slimmest of margins. At least until the final turn.
