For the Southern California Trojans, redemption was sweeter than a 10-second 100-meter dash.
The third installment of this year’s great track and field rivalry between UCLA and USC turned out to be all Trojans. After the Bruins won a dual meet between the teams earlier this season and the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, the Trojans got the one that really counts Saturday: the NCAA Track and Field Championships.
The Trojans took the women’s team title at the four-day meet at Hayward Field by nine points over the Bruins, riding the fleet feet of Angela Williams and a strong sprinting crew to their first-ever women’s team championship.
“It’s taken awhile to build this,” USC head coach Ron Allice said. “This was our year.”
The Bruins scored 28 points on the final day, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the 13-point lead that the Trojans carried into Saturday’s events. USC got key performances Friday and Saturday from Williams in the 100-meter dash, Kinshasa Davis in the 200, Brigita Langerholc in the 800 and Inga Stasiulionyte in the javelin.
“It was expected that one of these teams was going to win,” Bruins head coach Jeanette Boldon said. “Today, it was their perfect meet.”
Arizona and Stanford also had strong showings, returning the Pac-10 to track and field prominence for the first time since Oregon dominated in the 1980’s. Arizona ended in third, 11 points behind UCLA. Stanford was strong in Saturday’s distance finals, and scored 26 points on the day to end in eighth overall.
Like a good baseball game, Saturday’s competition at the NCAA Championships ended up being about key doubles and triples.
Williams became the first woman to ever win three-straight 100-meter titles. She took the 2001 race in exciting fashion, beating out UCLA’s Shakedia Jones at the tape.
“I could see [Jones] in my peripheral vision,” Williams said. “I felt like her momentum might carry her past me, but I just had to drive a little longer to the finish.”
Arizona’s Brianna Glenn single-footedly kept her team in third-place Saturday. The junior became the first woman to win the long jump and a sprinting title in the same year when she won the 200-meter dash. She also placed third in the 100, and therefore scored 26 of Arizona’s 44 points.
Florence Ezeh of Southern Methodist also pulled off a rare triple Saturday, when she became the first woman to win three straight hammer titles. Ezeh won Saturday’s competition with a Hayward Field and a meet record of 219 feet, four inches.
“I’m usually all tense,” Ezeh said. “Today my head was working and I could think straight. It feels very good to win this title again.”
Stanford had success in the distance-running finals Saturday, and that led to its eighth-place finish. Lauren Fleshman and Sally Glynn took first and fourth, respectively, in the 5,000, 45 minutes after Glynn finished second in the 1,500.
“The Stanford presence just kept building over the weekend,” Fleshman said. “I just tried to ride that, and draw off the Stanford team.”

The NCAAs were also about disappointment. The vaunted 400-meter corps of South Carolina failed to live up to expectations, and the Gamecocks finished fourth. Clemson stole the 4×400 relay from the favored South Carolina team, while Allison Beckford from Rice took the individual 400-meter race.
“I wanted to get out fast,” said Beckford, who beat the Gamecocks’ Demetria Washington by .09 seconds. “When I got to 200 meters, that’s when I knew I was going to win.”
Louisiana State’s sprinters also disappointed Saturday, and the Tigers finished sixth. LSU’s strong 4×400 relay team was disqualified, but its 4×100 team won the title Friday.
In other finals action, Dora Györffy of Harvard won the high jump with a high leap of 6-2 3/4. Györffy knew Hayward Field, as she just finished competing with professional jumpers at the Prefontaine Classic last weekend. Brenda Taylor, also from Harvard, won the 400 hurdles Friday.
In the heptathlon, Austra Skujyte of Kansas State floundered over the line in the final event, the 800, to the title. Skujyte collapsed in exhaustion when she crossed the line.
UCLA’s Michelle Perry finished second in the heptathlon, but also placed in four other events. Perry competed in 11 events over two days overall.
But in the end, it was USC who got the best of the southern California rivalry. After years of waiting, Allice and his team finally have their title, and their revenge.