2007 TFW at NCAA Championships -- Notes & Quotes
6/8/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track & Field
U-M currently sits in fifth place with a total of 22 points, which is already the second-most points in program-history. With three Wolverines (Katie Erdman, Geena Gall and Nicole Edwards) left to compete in the finals, the Maize and Blue has the opportunity to beat the previous-best point total of 25.
U-M added three more All-Americans to the list Friday (June 8) to bring its program total to 48.
Tiffany Ofili (100m hurdles) and Anna Willard (3,000m steeplechase) are the first Wolverines to claim All-America honors in their respective events.
Tiffany Ofili claimed the first individual NCAA Outdoor national championship for the Wolverines. The only other individual National Champion for U-M was Penny Neer (discus, 1982), who claimed her title in the AIAW (Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) National Championships.
Tiffany Ofili reset her own U-M Outdoor Track record with a blazing time of 12.80, shaving off 0.19 seconds from her previous best. This was Ofili's fourth time this season she reset her own school record.
Tiffany Ofili's first-place finish in the 100m hurdles is her fourth event title of the outdoor season. Ofili has a total of 11 first-place finishes in the outdoor season, including relay races.
Anna Willard claimed her first-ever NCAA Outdoor National Championship title in the 3,000m steeplechase, making her the second Wolverine in program-history to became an NCAA outdoor national champion.
Anna Willard posted a first place, career-best time of 9:38.08 to reset her own U-M Outdoor Track record by 6.80 seconds.
Bettie Wade is the second Wolverine in program-history to claim All-America honors in the heptathlon. The last Wolverine to do so was Tania Longe, who accomplished the feat in 1996 and 1998. In 1996, Longe finished ninth; she took seventh in 1998.
Graduate/senior Anna Willard and senior Erin Webster closed their careers on the track as Wolverines with their races tonight.
Q U O T E S
Michigan Head Coach James Henry
On Tiffany Ofili's 100m hurdle race ... "The most exciting of course is that she won the national championship. It was a very exciting race -- before tonight, I thought her regional runner-up performance was the most exciting race. There were three or four exciting things that occurred in that race. We're so happy that in such a short race, the plan that we had actually played itself out. It was really exciting to watch her accomplish her goal during the race."
On the first-ever NCAA National Champion for U-M as a sprinter ... "It's exciting to know that our program has come to the point where we can develop a hurdler from the state of Michigan -- from the Midwest in the Big Ten -- at the University of Michigan to be a national champion. It says more for our program overall, that we can have a national caliber athlete and that going to a warm weather school is the be all, but we can get it done at the University of Michigan."
On Bettie Wade's All-American heptathlon performance ... "It's really good. She's young and I'm just as pleased with her performance and her warrior attitude in those two days and seven grueling events. Bettie is a young lady that's learning the event and to be an All-American after two years, it's just a great feat and accomplishment on her part."
Michigan Associate Head Coach Mike McGuire
On Anna Willard's performance ... "It was a great day. That was her goal [to be a national champion] ever since she finished sixth here [NCAA Outdoor Championships] last year, when she ran for Brown. It's a culmination of a year of great training, a year of really hard work on her part, a year of merging within the program and working with some other great athletes. It's going to be a spring board onto bigger and better things for her in terms of post collegiate running. It caught a lot of peoples attention; there's no question about it."
On how Willard's performance inspires her teammates ... "Our successes all week have set off each other. I'm positive we'll get great races from Geena (Gall), Katie (Erdman) and Nicole (Edwards) tomorrow. They were just as excited for Tiffany (Ofili) as they were for Anna. Tiffany's race put that little extra spark in Anna's eyes. We know that if we keep this going, we can do some good things collectively as a team that we've never done before. In particular with middle-distance and distance kids, we've shared a lot of workouts so this is their chance to celebrate what they've done. They will look at this as great opportunities. They are not in awe of it and they embrace the challenge and they have been equal to it up to this point."
On Erin Webster ... "Erin has had a great career. She's improved as much as any athlete I've ever had come in. She was a walk-on who ended up being a multiple Big Ten champion. She's contributed significantly to the program. She's had a good two-year run from where she's started to where she's finished. We're proud of all her accomplishments, and she has had a heck of a career for us."
U-M Sophomore Tiffany Ofili
On her race in the 100m hurdles ... "It happened so fast. It was a PR, I can't complain. My start was really good and I didn't hit the 10th hurdle, which is the first time in probably a month that hasn't happened."
On the importance of being the first-ever U-M sprinter national champion ... "It's a way to dispel those myths that young kids hear -- that you have to go down south to be a good sprinter. It just shows that you don't have to and you can pretty much work hard anywhere -- up north, down south, it doesn't matter."
Players Mentioned
