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May 19, 2006 > Sports > Robinson sets new record in discus

Robinson sets new record in discus

Miners sneak past Owls to take second place at C-USA title meet

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

The women’s track and field team knew it would be in for a challenge at the Conference USA Outdoor Championships last weekend in El Paso, but part of the challenge came from an unexpected team. Rice led for the first two days of competition but finished in third place with 108.5 points, just 0.5 points behind surprise second-place finisher University of Texas-El Paso. The University of Houston won its fifth C-USA title in seven years by scoring 125 points.

Heading into the final event of the meet, the 4x400 meter relay, the Owls only needed to finish fifth or higher to secure second place. However, a disappointing eighth-place finish left the door open for the Miners, generally thought to be one of the weakest teams in the conference, to sneak through.

“I expected us to be first or second, but half a point — you can’t really do anything about that,” sophomore Marissa Daniels said. “I think everybody tried as hard as they could.”

The end of the meet overshadowed a good weekend for Rice. Senior Krystal Robinson broke her school record in the discus, throwing a first-place 183 feet, 6 inches. She is one of several Owls who will head to Austin in two weeks to take part in the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships. Robinson’s performance at C-USA is the third-best in the region, and she should easily earn one of the automatic spots in the NCAA Championships next month.

Head coach Jim Bevan said Robinson, who set the school record last April en route to a victory at the Western Athletic Conference Championships, is far ahead of her opponents.

“[Robinson] really didn’t have anyone to compete against,” Bevan said. “She steps in the ring and keeps bettering herself. … She’s an awesome competitor.”

Robinson finished 30 feet, 5 inches ahead of second-place Sivan Aballi of the University of Memphis, marking the third consecutive meet she has won by at least 20 feet. Robinson said she did not anticipate an easy win.

“I don’t think you can go out there thinking you’re just going to kill everybody,” Robinson said. “Since the last meet, I hit my goal, and I think it was just a little easier to go out there and further that.”

Another area of success for the Owls was the distance races. Daniels won the 5,000 meters with a time of 17 minutes, 9.48 seconds. She had earlier placed second in the 10,000 meters, the event she will run at the regional meet, by running a 36:07.01. Sophomore Callie Wells won the 1,500 by just 1.22 seconds, and sophomore Lennie Waite placed fifth in the event.

Bevan said he thinks Wells, who currently holds the fastest 1,500 time in C-USA and the ninth-fastest in the Midwest Region, has become a dominant middle-distance runner.

“She’s controlled the last two conference championships, indoor and outdoor,” Bevan said. “People are looking to her to see what she’s going to do, and so the race is dictated [by whether or not] she’s going to set a pace or not.”

Junior Kate Gorry turned in the best performance among the distance runners. She won the 3,000 steeplechase and finished second in the 5,000. Gorry’s steeplechase victory was remarkable considering she had never run the event before. Bevan elected to enter Gorry because senior Sarah Yoder, the conference’s top performer in the steeplechase, was at graduation.

“[Gorry] ran a smart race,” Bevan said. “She laid off the pace for two or three laps, and then she moved up, took the lead and actually got stronger and did better over the barriers and the water jump in the second half of the race than in the first half of the race. To do that at altitude is quite an accomplishment the first time out.”

Rice was relatively quiet in the sprints. Sophomore Desarie Walwyn, the only Owl to compete in any of the sprints, finished seventh in the 100 and sixth in the 200. Walwyn will compete in the 100 at regionals.

“In the prelims, I’ll do my best to make it to the finals, and in the finals hopefully I’ll do good enough to make it to nationals,” Walwyn said.

Injuries partly contributed to the Owls’ finish. Sophomore Chandra Ewing, a runner on the 4x100 and 4x400 meter relay teams, as well as Rice’s best chance to score in the 400 hurdles, suffered a stress fracture just before the conference meet and could not participate. Redshirt freshman Andrea Jackson, the Owls’ lone entry in the heptathlon, was forced to drop out of the meet with her own stress fracture.

Those two injuries could have been the difference between a championship and a third-place finish, but Bevan said he thinks those injuries could have been overcome.

“We weren’t really 100 percent,” Bevan said. “[Ewing and Jackson] were two big injuries. We were missing some points, but that’s not to say other teams weren’t missing some points. That’s part of the season.”

End of article

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