Brittany Neeley took the baton with a strategy in mind, a strategy that she had used previously in the meet.
The race came around the final turn of the track, and Purdue’s Hope Schmelzle had taken the outside to pass Neeley, who kept pressing the speed. It was dead even in the home stretch with nearly 50 meters until the finish line, and both girls were growing fatigued.
“My sister told me that people were jumping and cheering in the stands, but I didn’t hear any of it,” Neeley said. “In the video, I saw my teammates stomping next to the track, but I didn’t see anything.”
It was the final leg of the 3200-meter relay that would decide the winner of the Purdue dual meet.
The girls hit the finish line like an explosion, with dives toward the plane, batons sent sailing toward the track. Both girls dropped to the ground in exhaustion.
***
Freshman Brenna Calder and sophomores Bethany Neeley, Kellie Davis and Brittany Neeley prepared to run 800 meters each, in that order.
The Neeley twins and Calder had just run the women’s mile minutes beforehand, and Davis claimed victory in the 800-meter run shortly before the mile.
Purdue’s women were just as worn out as the four Hoosiers, with three runners having run the mile and one the 800.
“Running the mile and then the 4-by-8 is no easy task, and we had three girls do it,” IU Coach Ron Helmer said.
With a score of 64-62 in the Hoosiers favor and a five-point swing awarded to winner of the race, the meet was resting on the eight girls who walked to the line.
“The coaches really hyped up this meet, since we lost last year,” said Neeley, the last leg of the relay for the Hoosiers. “We were really nervous before it started.”
The gun went off, and there was no going back.
Calder carried the baton for the Hoosiers in the first leg of the event. After four laps around the 200-meter indoor track, the race was dead even.
The second leg of the race was a different story, though, as Bethany Neeley received the baton to compete with Purdue’s sophomore Vanessa McLeod, who had not raced since the women’s 800-meter run. As Neeley handed the baton to Davis, the Hoosiers were trailing by nearly four seconds, and the race seemed dismal.
Davis made up the four-second deficit against Purdue junior Katie Hoevet. Hoevet had placed second in the women’s mile, just behind Brittany Neeley, who now had the baton with a slight lead for the Hoosiers.
“I had confidence that it would come down to what it did in the mile, the sit-and-kick,” Neeley said.
For 600 meters, three laps around the track, Neeley maintained the lead and paced herself and Schmelzle until the final lap, where she was ready to speed it up for the “kick” portion of the strategy.
“Brittany basically made it a 200-meter sprint,” Helmer said. “That’s probably the loudest I’ve ever heard the fieldhouse. That’s unusual for a girls event because it usually gets the loudest for a men’s event, but this women’s 4-by-8 made it shake in there.”
As the girls wrapped around the final corner of the track, their legs became heavy and slow, as if they were both running through a wind of cheers, desperately reaching for any type of lead on the other competitor.
***
The call was too close for officials to make, so a photo finish was in order. Cameras on both sides of the finish line captured the result, and, while officials consulted the monitor, coaches helped both girls off the ground.
All eyes were on the scoreboard, and, when the results were posted, half of the stadium erupted in cheers.
It was the Purdue half.
Purdue had won the race by one-thousandth of a second, as Schmelzle’s hand had extended just past Neeley’s head in the photo.
Purdue teammates ran to congratulate Schmelzle as Neeley made her way off the track. Purdue had won the meet 72-64, with additional points from field events that were pending confirmation before the event’s start.
“It’s easy to say what you could have done differently when you lose by one-thousandth of a second,” Helmer said. “Brittany just gave it all she had though.”
Both teams’ times for the 3200-meter relay were recorded at 8:57.19, with the scoring extending only through the hundredths.
“I really like to see athletes go out and compete the way those girls did with the meet on the line,” Helmer said. “I loved it. This race won’t define my career. I’ve been here for eight years. But these girls, and this team, will always remember it.”
