Women's Cross Country Wins NCAA Title
The UW women's cross country team, below, won its first national title in 2008, placing five runners in the top 40 en route to an easy victory over runner-up Oregon. Paced by seventh-place finisher Christine Babcock, five Huskies earned All-America honors to cap an undefeated season for Coach Greg Metcalf, who was named National Coach of the Year.
Tim Lincecum Captures NL Cy Young Award
Former Husky hurler Tim Lincecum won pitching's highest honor in just his second season in the big leagues. Lincecum, who pitched at UW from 2004–06, was 18-5 for the San Francisco Giants with a 2.62 ERA and a major league-leading 265 strikeouts. The 24-year-old right-hander led the National League in several statistical categories and made his first All-Star squad, though an illness kept him out of the July 15 game at Yankee Stadium.
Volleyball Falls Just Short of Final Four
Washington's women's volleyball team advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals for the fifth time in six seasons. The Huskies narrowly missed out on the Final Four after dropping a heartbreaking 3-2 decision to Nebraska at home. The UW finished fifth in the national
rankings and loses just one senior,
middle blocker Jessica
Swarbrick.
Huskies Rank Third in Directors' Cup
The fall athletic season was one of the most successful in UW history and, according to the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings, placed the Huskies third among 342 Division I schools in the country. The Huskies trailed second-place North Carolina by just four points but were well behind the leader, Stanford. Washington's ranking is the highest in school history, though the standings do not include football. The Directors' Cup recognizes schools that achieve broad-based success in both men's and women's sports.
Women's Soccer Bounces Back
Considered by many to be one of the more remarkable turnarounds in women's college soccer, the Huskies reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament just three years after going 0-17-3 in 2005. Washington broke out in 2008, going 14-5-1 with a 3-2 overtime win over LSU in the tournament's first round.
Home Games at Qwest Field
The UW and the Seattle Seahawks reached a verbal agreement in January that would put the Huskies at Qwest Field in 2010, paving the way for a Husky Stadium renovation to begin immediately after the 2009 football season. The UW has said it will foot half of the upgrade's $300 million cost. Some lawmakers and boosters are pushing for King County—not the state—to fund the other half through county-specific taxes, such as
a hotel-motel tax.—Derek Belt