Student Life Archives (2001-2008)

Men’s and women’s Track and Field teams dominate UAA’s this weekend

Matt Rubin

Both Washington University’s men’s and women’s track and field teams turned in dominating performances at Sunday’s University Athletic Association Outdoor Championships.

The teams combined to win 13 individual events en route to sweeping the team championships. The achievement marks the second consecutive year that the two teams have swept the tournament.

Senior Drew Martin, the defending champion in both shot put and discus, helped the men’s team take the overall points lead on Saturday, again winning both events. His throws of 15.14 meters in shot put and 45.35 meters in discus both cleared the nearest competitor’s throws comfortably.

Juniors Cameron Williams and Aaron Mangold also won individual events on Saturday. Williams won the high jump with a leap of 1.94 meters, and Mangold won the pole vault, clearing 4.40 meters.

Outstanding performances were registered on the women’s side by juniors Delaina Martin and Beth Herndon. Martin’s winning shot put throw of 13.02 meters set a school and UAA record,

At the start of Sunday’s events, the men’s team led the seven-team field with 80 points, while Carnegie Mellon University trailed them with 55.5 points. The women’s team had tallied 81.5 points to lead second place Emory University’s 64.5 points.

The Bears continued their series of strong performances on Sunday, with junior David Gale and seniors David Skiba and Greg Reindl leading the way for the men and sophomore Tricia Frisella for the women.

Gale won the 3,000 meter steeplechase in a time of 9:18.09 as well as the 5,000 meter race in a time of 15:08.63. Skiba won both the 110 and 400 meter hurdle events, running times of 14.75 and 54.04 seconds respectively.

Reindl finished second in the 1,500 meters and his time of 3:54.68 provisionally qualified him to run in the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Skiba’s performance in the 110 meter hurdles and Gale’s time in the 3,000 meters provisionally qualified them as well.

Martin again delivered a standout performance for the women on Sunday, winning the hammer throw with a toss of 45.72 meters as well as the shot put with a throw of 13.02 meters.

Including Martin, the Bears women captured titles in seven individual events. Outstanding performances included first places by Alli Alberts in javelin with a throw of 34.91 meters, Abbey Hartmann in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, Andrea Moreland in the 800 meter and Elizabeth Herdon in the 10,000 meter.

Sophomore Tricia Frisella won the 1,500 meter and 5,000 meter races in times of 4:40.71 and 17:45.99, respectively, qualifying her for the NCAA Championships. Morgen Leonard-Fleckman had hit a provisional qualifying mark in the pole vault. Other NCAA provisional qualifying performances were achieved by Reindl, Skiba and Martin.

“I was excited how well the women’s and men’s teams banded together, performing exceptionally well this weekend,” said Head Coach Paul Thornton. “It was a close conference meet, but the men really answered the bell, especially on the last day, and we ended up winning by more than we had initially planned.”

Success and victory were achieved despite the set back experienced when Leah Sabin injured her knee, preventing her from competing in much of the meet.

“When you go to a UAA championship, you have to endure the ebbs and flows of what a championship presents,” said Thornton. “There are always things you don’t expect or plan for, but the team really rallied around [Sabin] and performed even better.”

NCAA qualifiers will be preparing for NCAA Championships starting May 25.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Print This Post Print This Post

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!

Student Life is the independent student newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis. Keep in touch with Washington University by subscribing to an RSS feed of our stories or an RSS feed of our comments. Privacy Policy | Comments Policy | Web Policy