Mariko Tansey Holbrook '03 and Caitilin Malloy '03 proved Saturday at the NCAA Division III women's cross country championships at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. that when Brandesians compete, they compete to win.Holbrook and Malloy, co-captains of Brandeis' women's cross country team, both earned All-America honors with second and 22nd place finishes respectively at the event. This was the last of their cross country careers at Brandeis.

These finishes are particularly impressive considering that, according to Holbrook, teammate Malloy moved up 16 spots, from 38th to 22nd, in the last 1000 meters of the race, and Holbrook herself ran the majority of the course with an untied shoelace.

"My goal had been to win nationals," Holbrook said, "but Missy Buttry (the first place finisher from Wartburg College in Iowa) just sort of took off after the first mile. That was the point that my right shoe came untied."

Understandably, this threw Holbrook for a loop, but she quickly recovered. "I sort of had a feeling that it might come untied because I had been futzing with it before the race," she said. "It actually worked in my favor, though, because for a little bit it sort of threw me ... But, we were running through this wheat field area and I sort of thought to myself, 'there's no reason for this to hold me back.'"

She continued to push herself despite the pedal setback, and went on to finish ahead of the runner who had bested her at the Nov. 16 regional meet at which she qualified for Nationals.

Although Holbrook finished approximately 55 seconds behind the number one finisher, she said she thinks her untied shoelace might have contributed to the gap which otherwise might have been less significant.

"If my shoe had been tied, maybe I could have closed the gap a little bit between Missy Buttry and myself," she said.

"Caitlin was just awesome," Holbrook added. "There was no doubt in my mind that she was going to be all-American. I think she finally found the confidence to do what she was capable of. She just ran phenomenally."

The co-captains' successes were symbiotic.

"Caitlin's got this incredible kick," Holbrook said, describing the phenomenon whereby runners exert themselves maximally toward the end of the race. "She's phenomenal with that. She's known for her kick. She's one of the reasons that I always finish hard, because training with her makes me used to the fact that the race isn't over till its over."

"In the last 1000 meters of the race, she moved up 16 spots, and that's a fairly phenomenal feat. But, the thing is, that that's very typical of Caitlin," Holbrook added.

Malloy was just four seconds short of a top-20 finish this year. At the 2001 championships, she finished 151st. Holbrook's second place finish was the highest ever by a Brandeis woman at the NCAA Division III championships, according to Gosman's Sports Information Director Adam Levin '94.

Holbrook summarized the experience, saying, "It was awesome.