Celebrating 90 Years - A Decade of Dominance for UNC Asheville Cross Country

The UNC Asheville women's cross country program was the dominant one in the Big South Conference in the 1990's.

The Bulldog harriers ruled the league with four titles in a six-year span from 1994-99. Not bad for a program that had three coaches during that time and started the decade at the bottom of the conference.

The decade began with a young Asheville program struggling to have enough runners to compete for a season. However, sophomore Michelle Selby, a WNC native, brought some joy to the Bulldogs in 1990. She finished in eighth place at the Big South championship meet and became the first Asheville female runner ever to earn all-conference honors.

Selby took ninth in 1991 and was once again earned all-conference honors. In the spring of 1992, head coach Valerie Lemoignan left the Bulldog program to take a job with the NCAA Compliance Department.

The Asheville administration hired Willy Wood from Taylor University in Indiana to succeed Lemoignan.

Wood wasn't hired until the summer of 1992 but he quickly put his stamp on the Bulldog program as Asheville had two runners earn all-conference honors for the first time in school history. Selby earned a sixth-place finish in her final cross country BSC meet. Not bad for a runner who joined the program as a walk-on from the tiny high school of Nantahala. Wendy Trehern made her final meet memorable as well as she battled hard to get the final all-conference spot with a 10^thplace spot.

Selby earned all-conference honors three different times. She is one of just 35 runners in the history of the league to accomplish that feat.

Wood brought in an impressive recruiting class and set the groundwork for the Bulldogs' dominance in the 1990's. Asheville stunned the league when it finished in second place at the 1993 league meet. Newcomers' Marlene Gardner and Becky Vonderhaar came in sixth and seventh place respectively to help the Bulldogs to the surprising finish. It was to be the first of four all-conference honors for Vonderhaar. She is one of just 10 runners to accomplish that feat in league history. She would become the first UNC Asheville track athlete to earn a spot in the school's Hall of Fame in 2008.

Wood's stay at Asheville would be brief however as he was hired to be Columbia University's director of track and cross county in the spring of 1994. Asheville would hire veteran coach Stan Rosenthal to lead the Bulldog program.

Rosenthal was the right man to take over at Asheville as he had established strong distance programs at South Alabama and Long Beach State. Wood's last recruiting class was another great one, and the Bulldogs were headed to a championship in 1994.

On a cloudy day in Towson, Md., Asheville's women's cross-country squad would accomplish another first by winning its first ever Big South Conference championship. Freshman Siobhan Keenan led four Bulldogs who finished in the top eight, all earning all-conference spots. Keenan took third, the highest finish for an Asheville runner. Marlene Silva finished fifth, while Vanderhaar came in seventh, followed by Andrea Jernigan coming in eighth place. The Bulldogs edged Coastal Carolina by just two points to claim the league crown.

Coastal Carolina and Asheville would be the teams to beat in 1995 and nobody did. Even each other. For the first and only time in league history, the schools would finish in a tie for the conference championship with both the Bulldogs and Chanticleers scoring 38 points. Keenan finished one spot better than she had the year before with a second-place spot, while newcomer Emily Olinger came in fourth place. Keenan was also named Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the first Bulldog to ever win that award.

The Bulldogs would finish in second place in 1996 and 1997 before getting back to the top at the end of the decade as Rosenthal brought in another exceptional recruiting class.

Asheville captured its third title in 1998. Mandy Becker became just the second Bulldog in school history to finish in second place, while Katie Harmuth placed third. Julie Wilhelm was the Bulldogs' third runner to take all-conference honors with a seventh-place finish and became the first Asheville runner to be named Big South Freshman of the Year.

Asheville and Coastal Carolina battled for Big South supremacy year-in-and-year out during the 90's and their final meeting in the 1990's would be no different.

In 1999, the Bulldogs would win their fourth BSC championship in six years by one point over the Chanticleers. Asheville would have 47 points with CCU earning 48. The Bulldogs accomplished this title the hard way with only two Bulldogs finishing in the top 10. Newcomer Zola Davis took second place, while Becker came in seventh.

Asheville's program was the team of the 1990's with four championships, and three second-place finishes. After 1992's championship, the Bulldogs would never finish lower than second over the remainder of the decade. Twenty-one runners were all-conference performers.

It was a decade to remember for the Bulldog harriers. Becker became the second Asheville runner to make the all-conference team three times.

**In celebration of UNC Asheville's 90th anniversary, Hall of Famer Mike Gore will look back on important moments in athletics department history over the course of the 2017-18 athletic year**

University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics

Celebrating 90 Years - A Decade of Dominance for UNC Asheville Cross Country

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