March 10, 2000

Fayetteville, AR.--- On Friday, March 10, at the 2000 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships held at the Tyson Center in Fayetteville, Ark., Villanova senior Carrie Tollefson placed second in the 5,000m run, while Wildcat junior Charmaine Walker finished in sixth place in the 60m hurdle finals.

Fresh off an outstanding Big East Championship performance that saw her earn Outstanding Female Performer status in leading the `Cats to a conference title, Tollefson (15:51) picked up right where she left off. In Friday evening's 5,000m finals, she finished just five seconds behind Arkansas's Amy Yoder, who won the NCAA title with a time 15:46. Also running in the 5,000m for Villanova was Ann McGranahan, who was 13th in 16:38.

Earlier in the day in the preliminaries of the 60m hurdles, Wildcat junior Charmaine Walker finished first in the third heat with a time of 8.10. Walker's time placed her second overall behind LSU's Joyce Bates (8.01), heading into Friday evening's finals. In the 60m hurdle finals later in the night, she would run a time of 8.17 to earn a sixth place finish. Winning the 60m hurdles titles was Auburn's Vonette Dixon (7.94).

Villanova senior Carmen Douma posted an outstanding performance in the preliminaries of the mile run. Douma won heat one of the preliminaries, crossing the finish line in a time of 4:44.61. Her time was the top of the preliminaries, a full tenth of a second ahead of the closest competitor going into Saturday's finals.

In day two of the NCAA Championships on Saturday, Douma will kick off the day for the Wildcats in the mile finals at 6:05 p.m. At 7:00 p.m., Villanova's Kristin Nicolini, McGranahan and Tollefson will run in the finals of the 3,000m. Tollefson is the defending 3,000m indoor champion.