After a string of successful showings in previous meets, the women's track and field team traveled to Storrs, Conn., Saturday looking to improve on its already stellar season. The Bears finished second out of eight teams, falling only to the University of Connecticut by a score of 225 to 193 at the Husky Spring Invitational. But the Bears said they were already turning their focus to much tougher competition at the Heptagonal Championships in two weeks.
"The women almost won the meet without even trying," said Director of Track and Field Craig Lake. "We are gaining on UConn, which is a good sign that our team is putting it together at the right time."
Though some distance runners were absent and others competed in off-events, the Bears managed to string together an impressive day. The team finished with multiple top-five performances in almost every event, as well as two first-place finishes.
"Although we don't have an extremely large team, we still have a lot of depth," said Akilah King '08. "In most running events, we have more than one person who is capable of scoring at Heps. It's the quality of the athletes that matters, not necessarily the quantity."
There certainly were some quality performances on the day, which started off with a one-two punch from Thelma Breezeatl '10 and Lauren Hale '07. The speedsters came in second and third in the 100-meter dash with respective times of 11.82 seconds and 12.28. Breezeatl - who already made a name for herself by winning the 60-meter dash in the Indoor Heptagonal Championships earlier this year - broke the school record in the 100-meter with her personal best performance. Her time edged out the previous top time by .05 seconds.
In the 200-meter dash, King blazed to a second-place finish of 24.19 seconds, while Breezeatl logged in at fifth with a 24.48. Cheryl Scott '07, Jasmine Chukwueke '10 and Naja Ferjan '07 placed second, fourth and fifth in the 400-meter dash with times of 56.59 seconds, 58.01 and 59.26, respectively.
In the 800-meter run, Smita Gupta '08 ran a personal best of 2:13.21 to win the event, while teammate Brooke Giuffre '10 followed in third place with a personal best of her own, at 2:16.92.
Giuffre also ran the 1,500-meter and placed second, and Herald Assistant Sports Editor Madeleine Marecki '07 placed fourth in the 5,000-meter with a time of 18:41.26.
The field events provided a wealth of points for the Bears starting in the pole vault which boasted five top-7 finishes. Kristin Olds '09 led the way with a first-place finish by clearing 11-feet 6.25 inches. Cassie Wong '10 came in third with a clearance of 11-0.25. Tiffany Chang '08, Keely Marsh '08 and Allison Brager '07 rounded out the scoring by sweeping fifth through seventh places.
Rikki Baldwin '07 and Ferjan went two-three in the long jump. King not only jumped a personal best in the triple jump with a 40-foot 9-inch jump to put her in second place, but she also qualified for the NCAA East Regional meet.
In the discus throw, Danielle Grunloh '10 threw a personal best of 140-feet 2-inches to silver in the event, and Sarah Groothuis '08 placed third with a 138-9.
The day was a proud one for the Bears, yet they said they still have a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time.
"UConn was one of our last opportunities before Heps to step it up, and we did, which is promising," Lake said. "We have two weeks left, and we really need to rally, up the ante, and up the focus level. Similar to indoors, we aren't seeded very high in the league, and we will need to perform really well at Heps all around if we want to have a respectable finish. We want to remain in second (where we finished in the indoor season), and this will not come easily for us."
