AUSTIN, Texas “”mdash; Even as she rushed into the open arms of
teammate Sheena Johnson, Monique Henderson still had her
doubts.
“Are you sure?” she asked, still breathless from
anchoring UCLA’s 4×400-meter relay. “Are you sure we
won?”
The proof, of course, was scattered throughout Mike A. Myers
Stadium. In the stands, her victorious teammates cheered and
embraced one-another. Upstairs, tears streamed down UCLA coach
Jeanette Bolden’s face.
The Bruins, third or better eight times in the past 11 years,
finally captured their first NCAA championship under Bolden
Saturday night, thanks in part to Henderson’s dizzying anchor
leg.
Needing at least five points from the relay to clinch the title,
Henderson stormed past three other women to secure that
all-important fourth-place position, giving UCLA 69 points, one
more than second-place LSU.
“My whole last 150 meters I didn’t feel
anything,” Henderson said. “I felt like I was floating
down the straightaway. I didn’t know who I was passing. I
didn’t even know we needed to get fourth. I was just trying
to get as close as we could.”
Henderson’s heroics helped ease the sting of past
heartbreak for UCLA, a program that has made a habit of falling
just short of a national championship.
Twice in the past four years the Bruins have led on the final
day of competition, only to see their hopes dashed yet again.
“We’ve been so close before,” Bolden said.
“We’ve stubbed our toes so many times, but it’s
about time it’s our time.”
Victims of accursed luck in the past, UCLA actually benefited
from some good fortune this past week.
LSU’s Stephanie Durst, the second-place finisher in the
200m Saturday night, was disqualified for stepping outside her
lane, stripping the Tigers of six greatly needed points.
That disqualification came three days after LSU coach Pat
Henry’s protest, which led to the disqualification of title
contender Texas in the 4×100-meter relay, allowing the Bruins to
slip into the finals.
UCLA, originally the fastest team not to qualify, took full
advantage of the Texas blunder, setting the tone for the rest of
the meet with a second-place finish in Friday’s finals.
“That was really big,” said senior Sheena Johnson,
who ran the second leg of the relay for the Bruins. “We knew
we deserved to be in the finals. But to get second place was
great.”
Amassing a total of 34 points on Friday, UCLA kept itself
squarely in the title hunt heading into the last day of the
meet.
Sophomore Chelsea Johnson took home first place in the pole
vault, while Sheena Johnson and sophomore Dawn Harper combined for
seven points in the 100m hurdles.
Perhaps the most surprising contribution of the weekend, though,
came from sophomore Jackie Nguyen, who took fifth place in the pole
vault.
Nguyen, who needed an at-large bid just to qualify for
nationals, cleared a personal best 13-5 1/4 to skyrocket into the
top five.
“I could feel it coming,” said Nguyen, who had not
cleared 13 feet at either Pac-10s or the West Regionals. “The
past few weeks, I’ve been having better practices. I knew I
had it in me.”
The performance helped set the stage for a dramatic final day
during which the Bruins seemed to seize control of the meet in the
afternoon, only to watch the Tigers claw their way back into the
mix by nightfall.
Propelled by a pair of second-place finishes ““ one from
Jessica Cosby in the shot put, the other from Henderson in the 400m
““ UCLA leaped ahead of the competition.
Sheena Johnson’s world-leading performance in the 400m
hurdles accounted for the Bruins’ second individual
championship of the weekend and helped them open up a 24-point lead
on LSU with just four events remaining.
But the defending national champion Tigers would not fold.
Even with Durst’s disqualification, senior Muna Lee still
secured eight points for LSU in the 200m, and senior Neisha
Bernard-Thomas captured 10 with her victory in the 800m.
That total left the Tigers just six points out of first place
with only the 4x400m relay remaining.
Bolden, who once hid underneath the bleachers rather than watch
a decisive relay at the Pac-10 meet several years ago, managed to
stay in the stadium for this one.
“Anybody who knows me knows that I hate dramatic finishes
like that,” she said. “I just went upstairs and said my
prayers because it wasn’t in my hands anymore.”
The Bruin relay team, which had clocked the second fastest
qualifying time in the prelims Thursday, certainly wasn’t at
its best Saturday night.
Seniors Johnson and Sani Roseby, who ran the first two legs,
admitted to being exhausted after running a combined 13 races
between them over the four-day meet.
Henderson, too, felt the effects of a grueling weekend but
refused to let it get the best of her.
Taking the baton from senior Adia McKinnon, who was in seventh
place, Henderson rescued the Bruins as she has done so many times
this season.
Zipping past Miami’s Charlette Greggs, Arizona
State’s Cassandra Reed and Texas Tech’s Licretia
Sibley, she charged into fourth place.
Henderson had just enough adrenaline left to hold off Sibley by
a half second, completing a 49.6-second anchor leg for the Bruins
and negating LSU’s first place effort.
“We’ve been calling it a curse for years,”
Henderson said. “We’ve been second. We’ve been
third. For this meet, everything didn’t go right at all. But
we just kept our hopes alive and pulled it off.”
The national championship is UCLA’s first since 1983 and
its third overall. Previously the Bruins had finished in the top
four 15 times without leaving with the trophy.
“It’s been 20 years,” Roseby said, “And
the coaches keep reminding us it’s been 20 years.”
As of Saturday, though, there will be no more reminders, no more
talk of bridesmaids, curses or monkeys on their backs.
“Words cannot describe how I’m feeling right
now,” Bolden said. “It doesn’t get much better
than this.”