Walwyn sets personal-best in 100

By Natalie Clericuzio     4/17/08 7:00pm

The University of Texas-El Paso Invitational is traditionally known to be a prime meet for setting personal bests and record-breaking times. Last weekend, senior Desarie Walwyn met the first and nearly the second of these goals in the 100-meter dash; her 11.45 second finish is the third-fastest time in Rice women's track and field history. The scorching time set the pace for the Owls, who grabbed first place finishes in four separate events.Walwyn's distance-running teammates, who did not attend last week's meet, will make attempts at personal-bests of their own this weekend. Seniors Marisa Daniels and Callie Wells, sophomore Nicole Mericle and freshmen Allison Pye and Becky Wade will travel to Walnut, Calif., to compete in the Mt. Sac Invitational today and tomorrow, where each will take the opportunity to try to post qualifying times for regionals and nationals. The rest of the squad will run in the Texas Invitational in Austin tomorrow against six other schools, including Texas State University, University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of Texas.

While the Owls have three more competitions before the Conference USA tournament starts May 15, Walwyn's impressive mark in the 100 may be the highlight of the sprinting corps' season, but she will have some competition. Only two other Owls have ever posted better times than Walwyn, but one of them, sophomore Shakera Reece, is the current school record holder and finished second in the race on Saturday.

Even though she excelled this past weekend, head coach Jim Bevan said he believes even more is to come from Walwyn.

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"No one has challenged her yet in the 100," Bevan said. "She is a competitor. When there's someone who's a little bit ahead of her, she spurs on. ... Desarie is our leader, and she has done wonderful things on the track and wonderful things off the track."

Walwyn's victory in the 100 was not Rice's only top finish. As a follow-up to her nation-best result in the pole vault two weekends ago, senior Rachel Greff once again posted a first-place mark. Her height of 13 feet, 5.5 inches was a little below her record-breaking 13-9.25 vault, but Bevan attributed the reduced height to Greff's adjustments with her equipment.

"Greff is working on utilizing the bigger pole, and when she masters that she will vault higher," Bevan said. "When she went to UTEP, she explored a different pole and it will end up helping her. The competition was a benefit to her because she got on a pole that will get her a higher vault down the road."

Alongside Greff and Walwyn, two other seniors won their events. Chandra Ewing took first in the 400 hurdles with a mark of 1 minute, 0.91 seconds, just shy of a regional qualifying time, and Lacee Carmon won the 100 hurdles at a time of 14.56. In addition to her win, Carmon leapt 19-9.5 in the long jump, which was not only her lifetime-best by five inches but also a regional qualifying mark.

Carmon was not the only Owl with strong performances in more than one event. Walwyn complemented her win in the 100 with a third-place finish in the 200 and a second-place 4x100 relay.

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