Women prepare for conference
The indoor track season has a lot in common with its own fastest event, the 60-meter dash. Blink, and you'll miss it. The 2010 indoor track season spans just under two months, from the first meet to the end of the NCAA Championships. Last weekend marked the midpoint of the short season, as the team competed in the Texas A&M Challenge, its final meet before the postseason at the Conference USA Championship.
While there, Head Coach Jim Bevan learned a great deal about what his team needs to do to prepare for the upcoming C-USA title.
"There are a number of things to improve, and some of it depends on the individual," Bevan said. "There are technical glitches that need to be corrected. Sometimes in the field events and for other people it's how they finish a race off, it might be in their biomechanics at the end of a race, it might be in the way they run tactically, the rhythm of the race."
Even though only a week remains before the team competes at the University of Houston's Yeoman Fieldhouse to defend its three consecutive titles, Bevan has faith that his team can get where it needs to be.
"Indoor is such a short season that there can be a big jump in improvement from not just us [but] from any of competitors too," Bevan said. "It's really hard to assess where everything is because we've got an easy dozen people who all of a sudden, in two weeks' time, could make a big breakthrough at the conference meet."
Before the team reaches the conference meet, however, it had the Texas A&M Challenge to wrestle with last week. This meet pitted the Owls against plenty of top-tier competition, including No. 2 Texas A&M University, No. 4 University of Tennessee and No. 17 University of Texas-El Paso. The University of Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech University represented the Big 12, combining for 290 points. Tennessee, the University of Alabama, and the University of Mississippi helped the Southeastern Conference earn 163 points, with Rice, UTEP, and Houston tallying 130 points.
Rice responded well to the first-rate foes, as multiple team members earned personal bests. Senior Shannon Moran earned her top distance in the long jump, placing fifth overall at 5.72 meters. Junior All-American Becky Wade earned Rice's top finish in the 3,000-meter run, placing second with her personal best of 9:31.87. Her time was also strong enough to earn her another provisional qualifying time for nationals.
Freshman Heather Olson also had a breakout performance in the mile run, finishing in 4:57.42 and 11th overall. Additionally, sophomore Brittany Brown had her best weight throw at 15.59, good enough for 11th as well.
Outside of personal bests, several other team members responded positively to the high level of competition. Behind Wade in the 3,000, senior Nicole Mericle finished third in 9:47.10 and freshman Johanna Ohm placed 10th with a time of 10:12.13. In the mile, senior Britany Williams led all Owls with a fourth-place finish of 4:47.91, while sophomores Keltie John and Marie Thompson finished eighth and ninth with times of 4:56.56 and 4:56.93, respectively.
In field events, junior Tina Robinson impressed in the weight throw for the second week in a row, tossing 16.37 meters.
Bevan also mentioned that he saw impressive performances not necessarily shown in the results.
"[Junior] Brittany Washington ran a tremendous anchor leg in the 4x400 relay, and she also ran the best two-thirds of a 400 I've ever seen her run," Bevan said. "She's capable of running two or three seconds faster. ... What she worked on in the open 400 she was able to make an improvement on in the 4x400."
Senior Shakera Reece also performed better than her final score shows.
"Reece had a tremendous 180 [meters] of a 200-meter race," Bevan said. "She had a bad step, and she might have gotten another school record."
Because of that "bad step," Reece finished sixth in 24.03.
According to Bevan, even though Rice and the rest of C-USA (130 points) fell to the Big 12 (290 points) and SEC (163 points) in the meet, his Owls are ready to begin training for conference in earnest, with an aim to rewrite history.
"We're trying to win another conference title," Bevan said. "If we can win, it would be the first women's team to ever win four titles in a row [in C-USA]."
In fact, only the men's baseball team and the men's tennis teams have ever won four consecutive conference titles in Rice history.
Regardless of history, Bevan's team will be ready to race on Feb. 26 at Houston's Yeoman Fieldhouse.
"We keep looking ahead and keep looking forward and keep trying to improve," Bevan said. "We enjoy competing at the UH facility. It's almost like a second home for us ... and we do enjoy competing at conference meets. So we are looking forward to both of those variables.
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