Women's track places fifth

By Natalie Clericuzio     2/19/09 6:00pm

So long as Lennie Waite is running, it appears as though the women's track and field team is practically unstoppable. At only the second full-squad meet of the year, theOwls finished fifth overall while downing a handful of nationally-ranked teams ranging from Texas Tech University to Arizona State University, which was especially impressive since the Sun Devils won last year's Indoor National Championships.

Leading Rice once again was Waite, the Owls' most consistent performer this season. The senior won the mile in 4:41, improving by seven seconds the personal best she set at the Leonard Hilton Memorial Invitational earlier in the season. Waite returned to the track just over an hour after finishing that race and took second place in the 800 meter run behind her teammate, freshman Keltie John, who grabbed the top spot. John's winning time of 1:50 was a personal best for her as well.

Head coach Jim Bevan credited Waite's consistent improvement to her improved fitness level.

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"Mentally, she's maturing into a fitter body," Bevan said. "She's a much fitter individual than she was a year ago due to adaptation in hard work, and this is only her third full year of being a runner. Right now she's the fittest girl in the state of Texas. She's got the fastest time in the 3,000 and the mile and the only person who's beaten her in the 800 is her teammate."

Alongside Waite, John only continues to improve. Bevan attributed her success to her instinctive feel for the 800.

"Keltie has a good nose for the finish line," Bevan said. "She has a good sense for the rhythm of the 800, how to run it right, and how to get to the finish line in front."

Junior Britany Williams also ran the mile for the Owls, placing fourth overall with a time of 4:51, a lifetime best for her. During her time at Rice, Williams has shaved a significant 24 seconds off her mile time.

Junior Shakera Reece also had a strong meet, finishing 10th overall at 24:07 in the 200 meter dash - the fastest 200 run of her indoor career.

Sophomore Allison Pye also had an impressive performance, winning the 5,000 in a personal-best 16:32, good enough to qualify as a provisional time for Indoor Nationals. Fellow sophomore Becky Wade finished second with a lifetime-best of 17:02.

Rice's fifth-place overall finish came behind the University of Texas, Baylor University, the University of Miami and host Texas A&M University. While fifth place may be a drop from the team's first-place finish in the other full-squad meet Rice has attended this season, the Houston Invitational, Bevan characterized this meet as the most challenging of the season.

"It was the most competitive meet we've been to this year," Bevan said. "It was at the facility where they're going to have the national indoor meet. ... We were fifth out of 21 schools, and every point is critical at a meet of that caliber, so I thought we fared very well."

Rice was kept from a higher finish because two of the team's biggest scorers, junior Nicole Mericle and sophomore Ari Ince, did not net any points. Mericle was unable to run because of illness, but Ince simply had difficulty adjusting to the backdrop of Texas A&M's facility. Because the backdrop at the stadium is white, it confused many of the vaulters, Bevan said. Several of the vaulters were planting too early, showing a definite pattern that should not occur so late in the season. In addition, two schools who did not have trouble with the vault were Texas and Texas A&M, which had both vaulted in the facility beforehand.

While Ince was unable to contribute to Rice's scoring, Bevan said her experience at last weekend may help her in the long run.

"I think that if she is able to qualify for nationals it will help having been there before, because I think there are some people who are going to have problems with that backdrop [at A&M]," Bevan said.

Only two weeks remain until the Conference USA Indoor Championship Meet, scheduled for Feb. 27-28 at the University of Houston. Rice's biggest competition will likely come from the University of Central Florida, the University of Texas-El Paso, and Houston.

Over the course of the next two weeks, the track team will follow a training regimen specifically designed to help them achieve their peak performance at conference.

"This is a week of harder training ... and trying to fine tune field events," Bevan said. "We're still training at a high level this week. Next week is just tapering and mentally getting ready for the battle."

Bevan is hopeful that the meet will provide Rice another vital opportunity to post times and statistics worthy of qualifying for nationals. Even more importantly, however, the Owls will bare the burden of defending last season's indoor title.

"[Our goal is] first and foremost to defend our title and to win a championship and to have people perform at their very best in a championship meet, which is a characteristic of this team," Bevan said

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