Women's track set for postseason competition

By Natalie Clericuzio     5/15/08 7:00pm

This season, the women's track and field team set a bevy of personal and career individual bests. Together, however, they recorded an even more important team accomplishment: The largest number of post-season qualifiers in school history. After last weekend's action, the Owls now have 14 members with regional qualifying marks and one with a national meet invitation.The next competition for the Owls will be this weekend at the Conference USA Outdoor Championships in El Paso, Texas. Following that will be regional competition in Lincoln, Neb. May 30-31 and the NCAA National Championships in Des Moines, Iowa June 11-14. After winning the C-USA Indoor Championship in March, the Owls have a good chance to take both titles with a first-place finish in El Paso. With more regional qualifiers than any other school in C-USA this season, the Owls come in as the squad to beat.

At the Mt. Sac Relays on April 18-19, a few distance runners punched their tickets to postseason competition while tuning-up for the C-USA Championships. Senior Marissa Daniels earned a national-qualifying time in the 10,000, coming in seventh place at 34:07.60. This marks Daniels' fourth year in a row to qualify for national competition. In other finishes, sophomore Nicole Mericle qualified for regionals in the 3000-meter steeplechase with a second place time of 10 minutes, 49.98 seconds. After her, freshman Allison Pye ran a career best in the 1500, taking fifth place with a regional-qualifying time of 16:45.00.

While the distance squad competed at Mt. Sac, the rest of the runners and throwers traveled to the Texas Twilight meet in Austin, Texas. Sophomore Sarah Lyons had one of her strongest meets of the year, winning the 400 meters with a time of 53.74 and taking second in the 200 at 23.85, a personal best and regional-qualifying time.

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The following weekend, on April 24, while the rest of the Rice campus was studying for exams, the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium played host to the Fred Duckett Rice Twilight meet. Rice took advantage of the home track, excelling in sprints, distance running and field events. Freshman Becky Wade's performance was a highlight of the meet, as she broke the school record in the steeplechase with a second-place finish at 10:20.23, a regional-qualifying time. Sarah Yoder (Baker '05) held the previous Rice record of 10:31.57. Senior Callie Wells qualified for regionals with a 4:25.30 in the 1500.

The sprinters had equal success on the track, as senior Chandra Ewing qualified for regionals in the 400 hurdles while placing second at 1:00.78. Fellow senior Desarie Walwyn ran the fastest 400 meters of her collegiate career, winning the event in 54.80. This career best caps off a streak of record-setting performances for Walwyn, who also set lifetime bests in the 100 and 200 in the past two weeks. Additionally, freshman Alex Gibbs won the 100 hurdles, posting a time of 14.48.

In field events, sophomore Eunique Hamilton and freshman Sarah Agara both qualified for regionals in the triple jump, finishing one-two with jumps of 41-23.05 and 40-11, respectively, without the aid of any tailwind.

Rice then competed May 3 at the Houston Invitational held at the University of Houston. Walwyn continued her dominance over her competition, improving her regional-qualifying time in the 200 to 23.65. Gibbs also reduced her sprinting mark in the 100 to 14.27. Wells won the 800, running the best Rice time of the season at 2:13.49.

Head coach Jim Bevan credited the senior class for the all-around strong performance of the track team this season.

"We're going through a time that is extremely successful in the history of our program and a lot of that is due to the seniors," Bevan said. "[They] have made their presence felt on and off the track [...] in a positive way.

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