The women's indoor track team competed this weekend against some of the best athletes they will see all year. The Bears traveled to Boston, Mass. to compete in Boston University's two-day Fast Track Invitational.
The annual meet gave athletes at the collegiate level from across the country a chance to see a higher level of competition than they normally would in a regular season meet. The meet was not limited to the NCAA, as participants from all over sought to assert their dominance.
"It helps them run faster, to be on a faster track and to have other competition to help pull them along, but that's speaking from a runner's standpoint. I know that our jumps coach isn't too happy with the facility for the jumping events, it's not the greatest situation for jumpers," said Distance Coach Rick Wemple.
The Bears performed well and took advantage of their chance to better prepare for upcoming meets.
"I think that overall it was a good meet. It showed us what we have to work on. It showed us our strong points and our weak points. I think we really needed that because we have these next weeks to practice on the things we need to do, and hopefully it will all come together before Heps," said Ashley Wall '05.
The women posted their best performances on the field and in sprints, with Brittany Grovey '06 once again distancing herself from the rest of her competitors in the Ivy League by winning the triple jump at 12.21 meters. Wall placed sixth in the high jump, making it to 1.63 meters. Tiffany Chang '08 took seventh in the pole vault at 3.36 meters, Jennifer Donahue '05 placed sixth in the weight throw with 15.83 meters, and co-captain Jill Lynch '05 took fourth place in the shot put with a throw of 13.43 meters.
On the track, the Bears' 4x400-meter relay team, comprised of Natasha Barrett '07, Fara Kitton '05, co-captain Kelly Powell '06 and Naja Ferjan '07, placed third in 3:50.31, their best time of the season. In the shorter distances, Jaylon White '05 placed sixth in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.38. In the 400-meters, Barrett took eighth with a time of 57.53. Kitton qualified for the finals in the 55-meter hurdles and finished seventh overall with a time of 8.43.
The women performed well in the longer distances as well. In the 800-meters, Powell set a personal record with a time of 2:12.46, which was good for eighth place overall. Michol Monaghan '07 had a personal best in the 3000-meters with a time of 10:02.40. Nine women competed in the mile, with Alex Brown '08 coming in first for Brown with a time of 5:06.88.
"We always see some pretty big PR's when we get to this meet," Wemple said.
For the meet, the Bears competed very well overall among such high caliber athletes.
"It puts more pressure for us for us to perform well in the big meets. We need to show that we can hang with the bigger teams or we can hang with people who are a challenge. Most of our meets this season have been against teams that are at our level or lower. It's good to see tough competition especially before going into bigger meets," Wall said.
The women, however, will not take their performance in this meet as an indication of what is to come for them at the Heptagonal Championships. They took it as a learning experience, a chance to improve before facing close rivals.
"The meets are very different. This meet was a lot bigger than Heps will be, a lot more people in each event. Heps is always more personal. We usually have a lot of PR's - people set personal records at Heps just because the adrenaline is rushing and everything," Wall said.
"I think we've just started to turn the corner in terms of performances. When we finally get to Heps and put the two groups together, the runners and field event athletes, we're going to do pretty well as team," Wemple said.
The team will compete next at the New England Championships on Feb. 20 in Cambridge, Mass.
