Rice Track & Field 2010: Women's squad brings in abundance of upperclassmen, large group of freshmen to extend conference title streak
There is also this special video report on women's track for this week's issue.With six conference championships in three seasons, sweeping both indoor and outdoor competition, success has become an expectation, not just a goal, for the women's track and field team. Last season, then-senior Lennie Waite helped lead the team to their success, qualifying for nationals in two events and earning an All-American status in the 3,000 meter steeplechase.
With the graduation of Waite (Brown '08) and of the rest of the departing class, there are plenty of holes to fill and many opportunities for freshmen and underclassmen to contribute to the team's success in 2010.
Faces worth watching
Luckily, six freshmen in short distance and field events alone enter the team this season. Sojourner Brown and Lillian Nwora will bring more depth to the 400-meter run for the Owls, while Candace Springer will run sprints and possibly compete in the 4x400 meter relay, and Sheree Robinson, the younger sister of two-time All-American discus thrower Crystal Robinson and junior thrower Tina Robinson, will participate in the weight throw and shot put.
In addition, several freshmen who ran cross country will be joining the team in distance events.
These freshmen will not be the only ones to carry the team to another title, thankfully, with a large number of scorers from last season returning. Junior pole vaulter Ari Ince, who won the Conference USA Indoor Pole Vaulting Championship last year, will return, as well as sophomore vaulter Cleona Oliver, who closely followed Ince in second last season. Sophomore Brittany Brown, senior Katie Dollinger and Tina Robinson all return as throwers for the Owls as well.
On the track, senior Sarah Lyons and junior Shakera Reece look to lead the sprinting corps alongside senior Brittany Washington. Junior triple-jumper Sarah Agara will do the same in jumps with senior Shannon Moran and juniors Alex Gibbs and Tiffany Gill.
In distance events, senior Nicole Mericle and juniors Allison Pye and Becky Wade - who finished second, third and fourth, respectively, in the 3,000 meters behind Waite at the Indoor Championships last season - return. Sophomore Michaela Reynolds and senior Britany Williams will also contribute to the team's run for another championship.
On track for another championsip
This large freshman class, alongside the number of returning team members, should put the team in good stead to repeat their championships, according to Head Coach Jim Bevan.
"We have a large returning class among scorers, including new leadership, and we return the nucleus of our team and we're looking to do great things," Bevan said. "We have competitors in all event groups and we are better in the sprints, 400, throws, pole vault and in jumps. . We feel like we can have a better overall team."
Also aiding this year's squad is the installation of the new track in the team's home stadium. Bevan believes this facility will help improve the team's preparation.
"It's nice to have the new track to train on now," Bevan said. "It's nice to go out every day and have a facility that you're proud of."
Senior Nicole Mericle says the track reflects the team's success in recent years.
"We just started to run on it, but it's a huge improvement from the track we had - there were inclines and holes in the track before," Mericle said. "I think it's symbolic of the start of this new tradition of Rice track. It shows how we've earned it, since we've had so many conference titles in the past few years."
Meeting the competition
The team will begin its search for their next championship today at the Leonard Hilton Memorial at the University of Houston's Yeoman Fieldhouse. Twelve schools will be competing, most notably the University of Texas, ranked preseason No. 15 by the United States Track and Field-Cross Country Coaches Association. Other competitors to watch for include Tulane University and host Houston, as well as University of Texas-San Antonio and Louisiana Tech University, defending Western Athletic Conference champions.
As the team has only a week of practice under its belt, Bevan sees the meet as an opportunity to see where the Owls stand going into the season.
"My goal for the first meet is to get started, have us get our feet wet, compete hard and find out where we are," Bevan said. "It will be a full-squad meet. We will have as many people as possible competing."
Bevan also hopes to find out where his team stands to begin the season.
"I'm really looking forward to seeing where the freshmen are at because this is the first meet for us," Bevan said. "You establish a starting point and we'll find it and then start growing from there."
The Owls will need to be sharp against a considerably improved line-up of conference competition from last season. Houston, which finished second behind Rice at last year's indoor championships, is a historically strong program and suffered no significant losses from last year's squad. The second-place finisher behind Rice in last year's outdoor championship, the University of South Florida, also boast an impressive and resilient squad. The University of Texas-El Paso, Southern Methodist University and East Carolina University also will aim to wrest the C-USA crown from Rice's head.
Mericle said the past conference championships by Rice help motivate the team to continue to defeat improved C-USA foes.
"It's a motivation to win because the whole conference is more competitive," Mericle said. "A couple years ago it was more clear that we were going to dominate, but now there's been teams like SMU and UTEP who have stepped up even more, especially on the distance side. We used to sweep distance events in track and now it's going to be a little more difficult."
Overall, Bevan's expectations for the season remain the same: high.
"We have two conference titles to defend, one indoors and one outdoors," he said. "Both of them we've won in '07, '08 and '09 so we have a string. . We want to defend our titles and we want to look forward to the most success possible at the conference level and at the national level. We had two All-Americans last year at the national level, so we'll strive to be the best we can be at the conference and national level.
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