Dons look to end Pac-12 dominance at regionals, make first podium appearance at nationals

By Erik Boal, DyeStat Editor

Weronika Pyzik just looked at Charlotte Taylor, smiled and shook her head in disbelief.

Taylor, a University of San Francisco senior and reigning NCAA Division 1 10,000-meter champion, was in the process of recapping how her victory Oct. 27 at the West Coast Conference Championships in Oakland, Calif., was sweet redemption after not finishing last year’s race, which resulted in the Dons placing third.

“I really had a bad experience at conference championships last year and I still feel bad about the way it played out for my team,” said Taylor, who broke the 6-kilometer Metropolitan Links Golf Course record by clocking 19 minutes, 10.5 seconds.

“It was super exciting to put that right. Maybe it was a banishing of the demons.”

Pyzik was quick to respond, claiming no such apologies or explanations were necessary from the Dons’ leader.

“She’s an NCAA champion. She didn’t have to prove anything,” Pyzik said. “Everybody can have a bad race, it happens. It’s not her fault. We didn’t feel like she had to recover from that.”

San Francisco didn’t let its conference outcome negatively affect its postseason performances last year, producing the best results in program history by finishing third in the West Region and sixth at nationals.

WOMEN’S NATIONAL RANKINGS | MEN’S NATIONAL RANKINGS

The Dons will look to improve on their West Regional efforts Friday in Seattle, Wash., by securing the program’s first automatic berth – awarded to the top two finishers – and a fifth trip to nationals in the past seven years Nov. 18 in Louisville, Ky.

San Francisco is trying to become the first WCC team since the Portland men in 1993 to capture a West Region title. The Dons are looking to snap a run of Pac-12 dominance that has seen Stanford, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and UCLA combine for the past 36 women’s regional championships.

“Our plan (at conference) was to take it out pretty hard in preparation for what we’re going to need to do to be effective as a team at the national meet and I think for the most part, we were successful at doing that,” said Dons coach Helen Lehman-Winters, who secured the sixth women’s conference title in her 15-year tenure.

“We haven’t raced (defending champion) Oregon yet this year, so we’ll have a chance to get a peek at them in Seattle, but we’re just trying to look forward step by step and get the most out of ourselves in Louisville.”

If anything, placing five points behind Portland and three points in back of BYU at last year’s conference finals was a reminder to the Dons of the value of each runner in not only setting, but reaching lofty goals, in addition to the importance of sacrificing individual achievement for the greater success of the team.

“I think you can’t express how important it is,” said Pyzik, who led a San Francisco sweep of the top four spots and the team title Sept. 23 at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minnesota.

“Of course, it’s very important to work hard and to contribute and to support each other, but there has to be this small miracle that makes you really want to sacrifice for others. You can always run hard for yourself, but making it for other people gives you this huge motivation that you can’t express otherwise.”

San Francisco has brought that mindset into each practice this season and carried that approach into every competition, including a second-place finish Oct. 13 at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational behind New Mexico, even more impressive considering senior Marie Bouchard didn’t race.

With Bouchard back in the lineup and Taylor winning the individual title, San Francisco placed six athletes in the top 10 to capture its first conference championship since 2013 with a 20-point effort, tying the second-lowest women’s performance in WCC history.

“I know she wanted to win the individual title, but Charlotte is also very invested in the team,” Lehman-Winters said. “For her to walk away with both, it sets us up nicely for regionals and nationals.”

Lehman-Winters guided San Francisco to five consecutive conference crowns from 2009-13. She has helped the Dons place in the top 10 in the regional seven times in the past eight seasons and last year’s sixth-place finish at the Division 1 championship meet was the biggest improvement of any women’s team from the previous season following a 28th-place result in 2015. Only the Ole Miss men, elevating from 30th to fourth, improved more than San Francisco.

With sophomore Isabelle Brauer and junior Tatjana Schulte also returning from last year’s NCAA finals lineup, along with Bouchard, Pyzik and Taylor, San Francisco now has an opportunity to not only capture the regional title, but make its first national podium appearance.

But in order for San Francisco to maximize its potential in Washington and Kentucky, the Dons will need to rely on significant performances from freshman Lea Meyer and senior Lizzie Bird, as well as veterans Bouchard and Schulte, to support one of the strongest trios in the country.

“We feel that we’re better than we were (at conference). I think that Lizzie and Lea and Tatjana all have better races in them, and I think they’re just starting to put things together, and Marie is fearless,” Lehman-Winters said. “We feel like we have all the pieces, and honestly we just want to keep challenging ourselves and get the most out of ourselves and wait and see what happens.”

Although the Dons have enjoyed great individual performances the past two years at regionals, with Pyzik taking eighth in 2015 and Taylor runner-up last year to Washington’s Amy Eloise-Neale on her way to a 10th-place finish at nationals and All-America honors, the emphasis this season has been on elevating the level of the entire roster to handle the pace and depth of postseason races.

“I think we are doing great right now with working together and we are going to do the same later, but it’s not just in the races, we are doing it every day in practice. I’m excited for regionals and nationals, because I know we can do the same as we are doing right now and keep up with each other,” Pyzik said. “It’s not like we’re working on this atmosphere on our team or trying hard to stay together or hoping to make something happen, it’s just natural.

“It’s not just about the top seven or nine, everybody is very important and they contribute this small piece that makes us better. If it wasn’t for them pushing me the past two years, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’m very grateful for them doing that every day.”

Whatever the outcomes Friday and at nationals, one of the most impressive aspects of the Dons’ rise to prominence, not only in California but on a national level, has been the ability of Lehman-Winters and her staff to mesh a group of homegrown talents with student-athletes from Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden into a cohesive unit this year while establishing a strong foundation for future seasons.

“It’s not just the girls that were out on the course (at conference), there is a whole squad of us and I think just creating that team environment for practice drives us all forward and makes us all better,” Taylor said. “It’s really important going forward because we’re not all seniors and it’s a growing team and hopefully this bodes well for the future. We’re all just making each other better each day and that’s good news going forward.”