Purrier's NCAA Championship: 'Something Good Happened'

DURHAM, N.H. – Early Sunday afternoon, just in from Texas and waiting at Logan Airport for a bus to take her and a University of New Hampshire track & field contingent back to campus before she continued on to the spring break hotspot of home in northern Vermont, Elinor Purrier was still getting her mind around what she had accomplished

"I feel like it still hasn't really sunk in," Purrier said. "I know traveling a lot of times gives you time to think. I just feel like I'm in a good mood and something good happened, but it hasn't totally sunk in yet."

Her phone was helping a bit.

"I keep re-watching the video," Purrier said and then laughed. "It doesn't get old. It keeps popping up on my newsfeed and I watch it and see that I really did it."

What Purrier did some 18 hours earlier was collect a huge addition to her trophy collection and deliver to the Wildcat track & field program in particular, and to UNH as a whole, a rare national championship.

She posted a time of four minutes, 31.76 seconds and gamely - and barely - held off Dani Jones of Colorado in the final steps Saturday to win the mile in the NCAA Indoor Championships in Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium at the University of Texas A&M.

Purrier's is the first NCAA title ever for a member of the UNH track & field team.

It's also the first NCAA championship for the school in more than three decades. The women's lacrosse team won the NCAA title in 1985. The women's hockey team won a national champion in 1998, just before the NCAA took over sponsorship of the sport.

Before that, the Kendall brothers captured a string of NCAA championships from 1970-1974. John Kendall was the NCAA Skimeister champion – the competition included Nordic and alpine events – in 1970 and 1971 and Kim Kendall followed with titles in 1972 and 1973.

Purrier had come close in NCAA championship races a few times before.

She was third in the mile two years ago. Last year, she was the mile runnerup after leading in the last lap.

"I've been trying to get this title for a long time now and had an attitude of 'just go for it,' heading into the race," Purrier said. "I planned to do whatever it took to get it."

Saturday, that called for moving to the front of the pack early in the race and setting the pace.

"A lot of times at big meets it gets very strategic and I didn't want to get caught up in a mess, so I took it out from the start," Purrier said.

"She was pretty bold to go to the front and run there the whole way," said UNH coach Robert Hoppler. "That takes a lot of guts to go to the front for the entire race. It took a lot of confidence. The plan was to make it a fast, honest pace. Elle's more comfortable in a fast race and there's not a lot of pushing and jostling then. She got to string out the field a bit. Once the Notre Dame kid kind of fell off, it came down to almost a two-person race and it was basically run to the line. That suits her. It plays to Elle's strength."

The finish shaped up like last year's. Figuring that might be the case, Purrier had been working on her finish leading up to the NCAAs.

"It was almost an instant replay of last year and they were basically dead even and she was able to find a little bit more," Hoppler said.

"I guess I wasn't doing much thinking right then," Purrier said. "I just really wanted it this year."

Purrier finished just ahead in her 4:31.76 and Jones was at 4:31.82. It was the closest finish in the race since 1991.

The race was almost too close to call and Purrier held off on celebrating until the scoreboard flashed her name as the winner.

"I was pretty sure I got it," Purrier said. "But it would be pretty embarrassing to get all excited without knowing for sure so I wanted to doublecheck on the screen.

Senior Michael Shanahan of Dover, N.H. set a nice tone for the day when he battled to a seventh-place spot in the weight throw to earn first-team All American honors.

"Mike had a fantastic day," Hoppler said. "Usually, when someone's there for the first time it can be a struggle, but he handled it really, really well. He got the day going. That was exciting and it helped having Mike there. Everyone was positive e and optimistic and pretty happy."

It only got better from there.

Purrier, who was fourth and third in the 3000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA Outdoor Championships the last two springs, got her first NCAA title.

"I'm so happy for her," Hoppler said. "She'd been close so many times and the favorite a couple of times and she's had to deal with all that and I know how hard it was to absorb some of those losses. Now it doesn't matter. Her college career is complete. She'll always be an NCAA champion. We obviously want her to have a good spring season. But it is nice to get one."

Nice all around. Nice for Purrier. Nice for her coaches, including Hoppler and Jim Boulanger, who runs the entire program, and for Casey Carroll and newcomer Jacky Mendes as well. Nice for the school.

"I've been at UNH since 1994, my first year volunteering with Jim, and in that time UNH has had a lot of those playoff close calls," Hoppler said. "And we were in that scenario at the national level it. I had a thought when Kacey Bellamy won the medal with the Olympic hockey team: 'There's one for UNH.' It gave me hope. It was nice that Elle was able to do that, too. And it was nice that coach Boulanger, someone who has dedicated his professional life to UNH, was there when UNH won a national championship and was able to be part of it."

Purrier came back a couple of hours after her title to earn more All American honors with a 14^th-place finish in the 3000-meter run – she's now a 10-time All American.

Sunday, she was headed to join the rest of the UNH student body on Spring Break. Not in Cancun or Cabo, though, but back home in northern Vermont.

"I'm just going home for a couple of days," she said and then laughed again. "It's supposed to be pretty cold. Maybe I'll hang out on the beaches of the Missiquoi River."

Yeah, she was in a good mood. Something very good happened.

Allen Lessels
@UNHInsider
Allen.Lessels@unh.edu

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