Michigan’s Kevin Sullivan put on a late burst of speed and a long lean at the tape to win a scintillating mile race at the NCAA Indoor Championships Saturday night.
Sullivan, a senior from Canada and the 1995 indoor champion, regained the title by outleaning Bryan Berryhill of Colorado State and Seneca Lassiter of Arkansas, the 1997 NCAA outdoor champion and national titleholder.
The early pace was slow, so no one came close to breaking four minutes, no less Tony Waldrop’s collegiate record of 3 minutes, 55 seconds.
But the finish was dramatic, with only one-hundredth of a second separating the top two and .06 seconds separating the first three.
Sullivan, who ran 54.2 for the final 400 meters and 26.3 for the final 200, was timed for the mile in 4:03.54.
In the women’s mile, sophomore Carmen Douma, the ECAC champion from Villanova, swept past Boston College’s Angie Graham, the Big East champion from Boston College, at the start of the gun lap and raced to a 9-meter victory in 4:37.74.
