Women's track spins personal, school records

By Natalie Clericuzio     2/11/10 6:00pm

What do the 1985 University of Indiana men's basketball team and the 2010 Rice women's track team have in common? Early in their seasons, both could be described as teams on the brink of greatness.

With only one meet to go beªfore his team competes for its fourth-straight Conference USA Inªdoor Track & Field Championship Feb. 25-27, Head Coach Jim Bevan said he believes several members of his squad are on the verge of breaking through to historic performances.

"I think there's a lot of people getting ready to stride forward to the next level," Bevan said.

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Leading the group of improving Owls is junior Tina Robinson, who set a new school record in the weight throw of 16.80 meters Saturday at the University of Houston All-Comers Meet, outdoing her sister Krystal's record of 15.73 m, set in 2005. Krystal (Baker '06) was an All-American in the discus, making Tina's accomplishment all that much more impressive.

"[Tina] never did that event in high school, so it's something that she's been working at, she had to learn," Bevan said. "She's done a great job, she's been diligent and she works hard."

Bevan hopes Tina's accomplishment will also spur her younger sister, freshman thrower Sharae Robinson, to greatness of her own.

"It's nice to keep the record in the family," Bevan said. "And it's also nice because her little sister's a freshman and she's watching it all. So hopefully that's inspired the little sister, too."

Bevan also noted that Tina has likely not made her final stand in the weight throw, as there are still two meets left in the season.

Still, the team is comprised of members other than the Robinson clan, many of whom also improved upon previous performances. Junior Ari Ince took first in the pole vault at 3.80 meters, and Bevan expects even more from her before the indoor season comes to a close.

"Ari's just knocking on the door of making a big breakthrough," Bevan said. "I could see her going a foot higher just like that. She looks so good on the runway."

Sophomore Kiri Kendall's high jump mark of 1.65 m placed her just short of a medal - she finished in fourth place - but Bevan pointed out that the jump displayed her commitment to fundamentals.

The middle- and long-distance events went even better for the Owls. Junior All-American Becky Wade led Rice in the mile run, placing first overall with a time of 4:46, a six-second lifetime best for her and good enough to place her on the provisional-qualifying list for the national meet.

For Wade, her performance showed her that she is ahead of where she thought she was in training.

"I was excited, definitely surprised, because it was a personal record for the indoor mile," Wade said. "It gives me confidence about where we're at and where we are in our training. I guess I kind of expected that running in the 4:40s would be a lot more difficult, and it actually felt pretty good."

Wade's teammates also swept second through fifth place, with senior Nicole Mericle (4:55.83), sophomore Halsey Fowler (4:56.23), sophomore Marie Thompson (5:02.02) and senior Britany Williams (5:02.03) rounding out the Rice finishers.

Bevan was happy with his team's performance, even if everything did not go exactly as planned.

"We knew we basically were running against each other and against the clock," Bevan said. "Becky ran an outstanding race. She looked strong the last 400 and she ran away. She looked strong, very strong."

Mericle excelled in the 800-meter run as well, winning the race in 2:14.38 despite an eight-month respite from competition, due to a foot injury. Behind her were teamªmates sophomore Sophie Peeters (2:14.74) in second and freshman Heather Olson (2:18.25) in fourth.

Bevan hopes to continue the team's trend of improvement tomorrow at the Texas A&M Challenge in College Station, Texas. As this is the third weekend of competition for the team, the coach said he hopes all the reps will bring out the team's greatness, as they will be pitted against top teams.

The meet will be scored by conferences, with three schools from each conference. The University of Alabama, The University of Tennessee and The University of Mississippi will represent the Southeastern Conference, while The University of Texas, Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University will come from the Big 12 Conference. Rice, the University of Houston and The University of Texas at El Paso will represent C-USA.

The meet will give the team the opportunity to reach another level of performance, according to Bevan.

"Sometimes that's exactly the formula that you need: to get out and compete," Bevan said. "This will be the first we've traveled [out of Houston], and the meet [this weekend] is one of the best meets in the country. So by getting on nice track under the high level of competition, we're hoping to make breakthroughs.

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