If it's true that the end justifies the means, then some of the ways in which NCAA championships ended this year were by no means justifiable in an ordinary sense.

No, many of this year's champions were determined in extraordinary ways. The Division III men's track and field title was shared for the first time in the 27-year history of the event. It took four overtimes and several hours to determine a champion in Division II football. An umpire's controversial call ended the Women's College World Series, while nature snuffed out a streak in Division III men's golf. And several individual-team championships were decided during the event's final race.

But perhaps no outcome was more unusual than the co-championship earned by North Central and Lincoln (Pennsylvania) in Division III men's track -- not just because it had never happened before, but because of the way it happened.

The two teams entered the meet's final event -- the 1,600-meter relay -- joined at the hip with 52 points. But that conjoinment figured to be short-lived because Lincoln's 1,600-meter relay team had advanced to the final in the event while North Central's had not. Because the eight finalists in track events earn at least one point, Lincoln figured to clinch, but there was a catch.

In one of the preliminary heats, a runner stumbled out of his lane and into the path of a competitor, which prompted a protest. The fouled runner's team was allowed to participate in the final, bumping the total number of title chasers to nine instead of the usual eight. That meant one team wouldn't score in the final.

Still, Lincoln figured to overcome the odds of being the odd team out. After all, Lincoln had won this meet five times before. And deep into the race, even as late as after the last baton exchange, Lincoln was just a stride off the lead.

But as Lincoln head coach Cyrus Jones would say afterward, "I live and die by Murphy's Law. If anything can happen, it will."

It did. Before the trophy engraver could begin work, the Lincoln anchor pulled up lame and limped in agony toward the finish line while the other runners passed by. Even though he crossed the finish line -- to a standing ovation from an appreciative crowd -- he did so in ninth place and the shared title was in the books.

The title was the fourth for North Central. The two track powers had claimed seven of the last 12 championships coming into this year. The tie provided further separation from the rest of the field, but not from each other.

Even both teams' coaches tied in their post-meet comments, glowing about the other's performance: "Being co-champions with North Central is an honor," said Lincoln's Jones, while North Central's Al Carius said, "Lincoln is an incredible, outstanding team and is very deserving of a national championship."

And both would agree with what Jones admitted later: "Certainly it was a bizarre ending."

Gridiron gridlock

In a year full of bizarre NCAA championship endings, the Division II Football Championship had about six of its own.

The rematch of 1998 title-game adversaries Northwest Missouri State and Carson-Newman was more than a game -- it was more like two games. After eight total periods of play and 110 points, Northwest Missouri State defended its 1998 crown. To do so, however, the Bearcats had to come off the mat several times.

The first was just after half time when, down 17, the Bearcats scored on a 20-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Travis Miles, his first of five on the long, long day. But Carson-Newman answered, as it would after the Bearcats' next two scores in the fourth quarter. By then, Carson-Newman enjoyed a 15-point cushion with but 3:34 to play.

"When you get to that point and you're down 15, you're going to have to have some breaks," said Bearcats coach Mel Tjeerdsma. "But we had a team that was behind in the fourth quarter of all our playoff games this year, so our kids had a lot of confidence. In fact, if you watched the telecast and saw our kids on the sideline at that point, you'd have thought we were winning."

But the Bearcats kept losing as the seconds ticked away. In fact, the break Tjeerdsma craved went the other way after a Northwest Missouri State score cut the Carson-Newman lead to eight with under three minutes to play. An onsides kick attempt, something Tjeerdsma said he wouldn't normally try, was recovered by the Eagles.

"Normally I wouldn't do that with two minutes left and all our timeouts," Tjeerdsma admitted. "We just weren't stopping them, and we felt like we'd better try it. But we didn't get the kick and at that point, things started looking pretty remote."

Indeed, the Eagles owned the ball in Northwest Missouri State territory, and to make matters worse for the Bearcats, Carson-Newman gained 11 yards in two plays for a first down. But after the Bearcats had used their timeouts, they forced the Eagles out of bounds on a third-down play.

"That probably saved us 30-40 seconds," Tjeerdsma said.

The Bearcats got the ball back with 51 seconds left at their own 26-yard line. Miles completed three passes for 45 yards, then connected on a 34-yard scoring toss with only 10 seconds left. The ensuing two-point conversion sent the game into overtime ... times four.

Tjeerdsma thought the Bearcats had wrapped it up early after forcing a Carson-Newman fumble on the Eagles' first possession. But the Bearcats misfired on a field-goal attempt. Carson-Newman returned the favor in the second extra period. Both teams traded touchdowns and two-pointers in the third period.

Northwest Missouri State scored in the fourth overtime but missed the two-point attempt. Carson-Newman converted a fourth-and-5 to gain a new set of downs at the 12-yard line, but a fumble on the next play dashed the Eagles' hopes and gave a 58-52 victory to an exhausted set of Bearcats.

"It was an easier game for us because we were catching up," Tjeerdsma said. "It's a lot tougher emotionally to be ahead by that much and let it slip away."

The game was the longest in terms of the number of extra periods in NCAA football playoff history and took more than four hours to complete.

Tjeerdsma said it was worth the wait.

"One of our fans hugged one of our guys on the field when the game ended and said 'if nothing ever happens again, it's as good as it's probably ever gonna get,' " he said.

The runs that weren't

The Oklahoma Sooners certainly are a quick study. They turned their first appearance in the Women's College World Series into a trophy after having hosted the event eight previous times.

"We are completely overwhelmed with emotion," Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso said after her team's 3-1 win over UCLA in the championship game. "As a coach, this is everything that I ever could have dreamed of accomplishing with a team of great, hard-working athletes. This is a moment that we have envisioned, and sometimes all that we have been able to do is envision it."

Oklahoma's title vision became blurred briefly late in the game, however. UCLA, which had as much experience winning the event as Oklahoma had hosting it, scored a run in the bottom of the sixth inning and had two runners aboard in the bottom of the seventh.

But with two outs, an umpire's decision ended the game. The UCLA runner at second took off when she thought the Oklahoma pitcher had stepped out of the circle, but the runner was called out for leaving too early.

UCLA head coach Sue Enquist contested the call amidst the Sooners' celebration. The television network even signed off.

"(The runner) thought the pitcher was out of the circle, which would have allowed her to go to third," Enquist said.

But an official statement from the Women's College World Series crew chief said: "In the judgment of the umpire, the runner was at second base in contact with second base, and the pitcher was in the circle. Then the runner left second base, making it a dead-ball situation, and the runner was out."

Enquist relented.

"I wanted clarification from the umpire," she said. "It was such a tough call. You never want to steal someone's thunder. I just had to clarify that the umpire was making a ruling on the correct situation. That way we all at UCLA can walk away and say the umpire made the right call. I was satisfied that the umpire made the right call."

That call helped the Sooners become the first team west of the Rocky Mountains to win the title since 1987 and just the third team in NCAA softball history to win the title in its first attempt. UCLA, meanwhile, finished second for the fifth time.

Different strokes

In the Division III Men's Golf Championships, Greensboro's low number of strokes won the event but Mother Nature's lightning strokes were part of the reason.

The tournament was cut short due to weather with perennial power Methodist holding a 12-stroke advantage at the time of suspended play. The rainout reverted the tournament back to third-round results, though, giving Greensboro the title.

Methodist trailed by just one shot entering the final round, then leaped past Greensboro and appeared to be headed to a seventh consecutive title when the skies opened up with the teams in contention having completed about 12 holes of play. NCAA policy states that if the course becomes unplayable during the final round, the champion is determined by the scores after three rounds.

Greensboro, a two-time runner-up, was the one left standing after the lightning finished flashing.

And speaking of strokes, the National Collegiate Women's Rowing Championship came down to the last one for the second straight year.

Brown and Washington entered the last race just one point apart, but the Bears surged ahead from the start in the decisive I Eights final and staved off a Huskies rally in the last 500 meters to win their second straight championship. Washington also is a two-time winner, having won the first two championships in 1997 and 1998.

Those were just some of the heart-pounders from this extraordinary championship year. There were others, including:

* National Collegiate Men's Gymnastics -- Penn State was fourth going into the final rotation and posted a 39.075 on the pommel horse to win the championship. Penn State was not really a favorite to win after finishing sixth at the Big Ten Conference championships two weeks earlier.

* Division III Women's Soccer -- UC San Diego scored the game-winning goal in the second half when a corner kick curved toward the Macalester goalkeeper at the near post, ricocheted from her hand to the crossbar and back to a UC San Diego player who pushed the ball over the goal line.

* Division II Women's Basketball -- It took 19 years, but the 2000 championship game finally was decided in overtime. Northern Kentucky outscored North Dakota State, 14-5, in the championship's first extra period to become the first team outside of North Dakota to win it all since 1992.

* Division II Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field -- Abilene Christian won both titles but waited until the meet-ending 1,600-meter relay in both meets before letting its fans rest easy.

* Division III Women's Indoor Track and Field -- The 1,600-meter relay also was the deciding race in this meet, won by Wheaton (Massachusetts).

* Division I Women's Outdoor Track and Field -- Also decided in the meet's last event, but instead of a relay, it was the triple jump, won by LSU's Keisha Spencer, which vaulted the Tigers to a 12th crown.

* Division III Women's Tennis -- The No. 5 singles match decided the first title for Trinity (Texas). And when it was over, coach Butch Newman discovered that his men's team also had won at Kalamazoo. "Every season, we shoot for the moon. This time we landed," Newman said.