Measured in any criteria, 2013-14 has been a resoundingly successful year for the SMU track and field program. In the fall, the Mustangs ran away with the first American Athletic Conference cross country championship, the program’s fifth conference crown in six years. Then, during the spring, the Ponies swept the AAC Indoor and Outdoor titles.

Lucija Cvitanovic will represent SMU at the NCAA Outdoor Championship for the second consecutive year (photo by SMU athletics).

For two members of the team, the season is not yet over, as sophomore Lucija Cvitanovic and freshman Tova Magnusson will head west this week to represent SMU at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore. Cvitanovic in the heptathlon (which includes the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200-meter dash, long jump, javelin and 800 meters), and Manusson in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. It will be Cvitanovic’s second time competing at the meet; a year ago, she qualified in the javelin.

That Cvitanovic qualified was not a surprise to head coach Dave Wollman.

“She was always physically really talented,” Wollman said. “Physically, she’s extremely talented. But this year, she’s much tougher mentally. She has worked with (SMU’s sports psychologist) Deb Wade, who has done a great job making her so much tougher mentally. She fights through things now, she fights through practices, she fights through performances that aren’t exactly as she wants them to be. Her biggest growth this year has been mental, and it has been huge.”

Now that she has qualified, Cvitanovic said she has set an even higher goal for herself, and falls back on one of Wollman’s lessons as a foundation for her optimism.

“I’m excited” to be going, Cvitanovic said. “The goal is to be in the top eight … and also to go there and have fun.

“I remember something Coach (Wollman) said (before the AAC Outdoor Championships). He said that we ‘have put money in the bank all year long — now it’s time to go shopping.’ He is right. We have been working hard all year, so when we go into competition, if we can have fun, that’s a bonus.”

Magnusson was more of an unknown quantity at the start of the year. Recruited to run the 800 meters and the 1,500 meters, in what Wollman called a “last-second decision” she agreed to run cross country, and quickly became the team’s best runner. She stuck with the longer distance in the spring, trying steeplechase for the first time, and took to the event naturally.

“From the first steeplechase Tova ran, she showed that she has a real gift off the water jump, and that’s where the race is,” he said. “If that (getting through the water) is ugly, you can lose a few seconds each time, and against top competition, that’s it. But with Tova, it was like she hardly even touched the water. She looked like she has run it all her life. She is a unique athlete who can combine speed and strength. She has been great.”

Magnusson admitted she was a little unsure when she started running cross country and eventually the steeplechase. The idea of clearing a physical hurdle during the event was not completely foreign to her, but it had been a while since she’d had to deal with those obstacles.

“I had run a 10K, just to see how it was, but I didn’t like it,” Magnusson said. “But I trained for it, and it was different training than what I was used to.

“Now, I don’t like the 800 anymore. I have done hurdles before, when I was younger — I did the 60 and 400 hurdles, and the 1,500 steeplechase. But this — jumping over water — is different. You learn how to catch yourself, where to step, where to jump. It’s pretty new to me, so yeah, I’m a little surprised (to be going to NCAAs). Now, I want to be in the top 12 in the first round.”

The top 12 finishers qualify for the finals; the 10:10.06 that Magnusson ran at the NCAA Preliminaries May 30 in Fayetteville, Ark., would have allowed her to qualify for the finals in last year’s NCAA Championship.

For all of their individual accomplishments, Cvitanovic and Magnusson both said they are more proud of the overall success the track and cross country programs have enjoyed this year.

Freshman Tova Magnusson qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championship in her first season competing in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (photo by SMU athletics).

“I get more satisfaction for the team, winning the conference (championships),” Cvitanovic said. “Everything you do there, you know you’re doing that for your team. It’s easier to compete when your team is around.

“It’s a different type of satisfaction. You have a different motivation that comes when you’re in competition. When it comes to (NCAAs), you do it for yourself, and it’s not hard to find motivation. But in some moments, when you’re doing it for yourself and it gets tough, you might be finding yourself wanting to quick. But when you have your team behind you, that’s not an option.”

Even with the three conference championships this year, the Mustangs have had to deal with adversity this year: sophomore sprinter Hannah Moss died suddenly shortly before the AAC Outdoor Championship. The Mustangs won the meet and dedicated the rest of their season to Moss. At the meet, Cvitanovic was named the conference’s Outstanding Field athlete, while Wollman, distance coach Cathy Casey, sprints coach Tony Miller and multi-events coach Ashley Mort were named AAC Coaching Staff of the Year.

“This team is very close, and they all loved Hannah,” Wollman said. “She was brilliant, a fantastic kid, raised right by her parents. She was the quintessential person who loved everybody. The throwers loved her, the sprinters loved her, the distance runners loved her … and she loved them all. She was a walk-on with good talent — not the highest level — but she just had this flamboyance about her. Everybody was happy and relaxed around her. She always wore orange — that was her favorite color — and those canvas Converse All-Stars.

“She also had this tattoo on her wrist that said, ‘when it hurts most, laugh.’ That’s who she was. We had wristbands made up with that written on them, and when we won the outdoor title, we had this little ceremony where we all put our wristbands on the trophy. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

Wollman said part of the credit for his team’s success this season has to go to Moss.

“All hell broke loose with the loss of Hannah,” he said. “That was the stimulus to stay at a high level, because then it became about dedicating (the season) to Hannah. Without Hannah’s presence in our minds, we wouldn’t have had enough left at the end of the year. We’re very close, but when the whole team said they were going to dedicate the season to Hannah, they dug deeper, they found out they had a little more to give.

“Lucija and Tova were two of those who found out they had more to give, and they came through, big-time. It paid off, too. They’re going to NCAAs, and they deserve to.”