Down to the wire

On lap 93 of the 100-lap race, Kappa Alpha Theta senior took the exchange, hopped on her Mongoose bike and built a quarter of a lap lead on the four teams that remained on the lead lap, Roadrunners, Kappa Delta and Alpha Gamma Delta. With a quarter of a lap remaining in the race, Johnson could not make up the half a straightaway lead that Roadrunner senior Jenn Wangerin had built in the final lap to win the 14th running of the women's Little 500.\n"I just don't believe it's over," Wangerin said. "It really came together for us."\nThe women's race had started out smooth but quickly took a turn for the worse when a wreck in turn one took out Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta and Alpha Chi Omega. The Alpha Phi rider involved was put onto a stretcher with a neck brace and an oxygen mask covering her face. The paramedic at the scene of the wreck said he wasn't sure how badly the rider was hurt, but said that she was being taken straight to the ambulance instead of the infield care center.\n At the 25-lap mark Delta Gamma, Roadrunners and the Theta's were setting the pace, averaging 20.454 mile per hour. By lap 40 the group of DG, Roadrunners, Thetas, Alpha Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta and Con Fuoco were the only teams out of the 30 participating on the lead lap.\n The race was then slowed again by an accident in between turns three and four as team Ashton and DG were caught up in a wreck that ruined any chances for Delta Gamma victory. \n With three fourths of the race completed, only four teams remained on the lead lap-Roadrunners, Thetas, Kappa Delta and Alpha Gamma Delta. A bad exchanged between AGD riders on lap 92 dropped them to the back of the pack of four, but the team found themselves fighting with the leaders in the final laps.\n AGD rider Heather Poag is the only veteran member of a team that has three rookies. She said that today's performance was a surprise but a pleasant one.\n "We didn't start training until rookie times (in February)," Poag said. "This is just the result of the hard work that we've put into the race."\n The Thetas made their move on lap 93, and Johnson pulled away to a substantial lead, but it ended up wearing her down, leaving her tired for the final seconds of the event.\n "It was a choice of whether to tell her to go now with eight laps left or save herself and go later," Theta coach Ann Holterhoff said. "We had (Johnson) on the bike and we told her to go. The Roadrunners had a fresh rider at the end. That's just the luck of the draw."\n In the middle of the backstretch, Wangerin made her move, passed Johnson and took the checkered flag for the Roadrunners, something she said she knew they were going to do.\n "We knew we were the best team out here," Wangerin said. "I wasn't going to let them beat us. You really don't want to pass on the inside, but I thought I would just got 15 seconds as hard as I could."\n Roadrunners coach Susan Gasowski said that the win just shows that their hard work throughout the year and the extra training in the last month leading up to the race was really worth it.\n "I'm glad that (the Roadrunners) showed up today and ran a great race," Gasowski said. "We knew that raceday was going to be our day."\n With the second place finish today, Johnson has captured the runner-up spot in every single Little 500 event this season, but you won't find her complaining.\n "Sometimes you feel like you've won the race even though you came in second," Johnson said.\n For over an hour and 15 minutes, 30 women's bike teams went head-to-head in a 100 lap brawl, ending in a finish that IUSF assistant director Jonathan Purvis said brought an appropriate end to the women's season.\n "This was outstanding," Purvis said. "Great race, great crowd; this is what this race is all about"