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March 3, 2006 > Sports > Women’s track finishes second at C-USA indoor championships

Women’s track finishes second at C-USA indoor championships

By Katy Miller | Thresher staff

The women’s track and field team finished 15.5 points behind the University of Houston last weekend at the Conference USA Indoor Championship meet held at UH. Rice placed in the top three in seven of the seventeen events.

Sophomore Callie Wells led the way for the Owls and was named Performer of the Meet after winning the mile and 3,000 meters with respective times of 4 minutes, 52.9 seconds and 9 minutes, 44.74 seconds. Sophomore Desarie Walwyn finished fourth in the 200, recording a personal-best time of 24.68. Senior Nina Mayes ran the 60 in a season-best 7.53, placing fifth.

Other runners also turned in their best performances of the season. Junior Shardee Caesar finished sixth in the triple jump with a mark of 38 feet, 8.25 seconds, leaping two inches past her nearest competitor in her final jump. Senior Funmi Jimoh finished fifth in the high jump, clearing 5-8

Sophomore Lacee Carmon, a sixth-place finisher in the long jump who was only three inches away from third, said the entire team performed well.

“Pretty much everyone from Rice brought it this week,” she said. “We got every point that we could.”

Head coach Jim Bevan said he was pleased by the runners’ performances under pressure.

“Whether you finished fifth or sixth [in an event] could make a difference in the whole meet, and that’s the way [we] competed,” he said. “It was an exciting meet in that every event had intense competition for every place. For me, it’s a winning situation for us to have season and lifetime bests and lay it all out there like we did.”

As they had done the entire season, the distance runners made a bold statement. Behind Wells’ winning time of 9:44.74 in the 3,000, Rice filled three of the next four spots. Sophomore Marissa Daniels placed second in 9:46.78, senior Sarah Yoder took fourth in 9:49.69 and junior Kate Gorry was fifth in 9:54.25. Daniels and Gorry also placed first and second in the 5,000, with respective times of 16:50.00 and 16:53.21.

Wells, Daniels, Yoder and Gorry will travel to South Bend, Ind. this weekend to attempt to qualify individually for the NCAA Championships to be held March 10-11 in Fayetteville, Ark. They will be joined by sophomore Rachel Greff, who won the pole vault at the C-USA championships by clearing 12-11.75. Jimoh will compete in the pentathlon at the USA Multi-Event Championship in North Carolina after not competing last weekend. The rest of the Owls will return to fundamental training — resting and preparing for the start of the outdoor track season in late March.

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