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February 9, 2007 > Sports > Daniels returns to win 5,000 meters easily

Daniels returns to win 5,000 meters easily

By Dylan Farmer | Thresher Editorial Staff

In her first race of the semester, junior Marissa Daniels wasted no time returning to competitive form, winning the 5,000 meters at last weekend’s University of Houston Invitational with a time of 17 minutes, 42.65 seconds — over 15 seconds ahead of the runner-up.

Her victory highlighted a number of impressive performances for the women’s track team, which now has less than three weeks to prepare for the Conference USA Indoor Championships Feb. 23-24.

Daniels’ performance was by no means a surprise — she recorded a team-best 16:40.32 in the 5,000 during last year’s indoor season and a school record 16:28.87 during the outdoor season — but the fact that the win came after five weeks of recovery from hamstring and foot problems makes it all the more impressive.

Head coach Jim Bevan said Daniels’ dominance in the race was remarkable.

“I wouldn’t say it was a comfortable race, because [Daniels] ran hard, but 100 meters into the race it was over,” Bevan said. “They let her go and nobody went with her. She wasn’t challenged, and I was happy with the results.”

Daniels and the other distance runners will travel to Seattle tomorrow to compete in the Washington Invitational. The University of Washington boasts the Dempsey Indoor Track Stadium, one of the premier facilities in the country. The track itself is banked on the curves, and has the reputation of being one of the fastest tracks in the country — athletes recorded five world top-10 marks at Dempsey in 2003. Daniels said she hopes she and the other runners can use the opportunity to improve their times before heading into the C-USA meet.

“I just want to get another good race in and hopefully a fast time,” Daniels said. “It’s a good opportunity for all of us to run fast — down here, it’s hard to run that fast on a track that’s not banked.”

The remaining members of the team will split up, as well. Most of the sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers will travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico to compete in the Lobo Invitational tonight and tomorrow, and the rest of the athletes will compete at the University of Houston RunSport tomorrow.

Daniels wasn’t the only Rice runner to climb the podium last week. Freshman Brittany Washington improved her career-best time to 56.86 en route to winning the 400-meters, finishing just ahead of second-place sophomore Chandra Ewing. Three weeks after winning the triple jump at the Leonard Hilton Memorial, freshman Eunique Hamilton only took second at UH and improved her career-best jump to 40 feet, 0.75 inches. Sophomore Jenny Glover also improved her career best, posting a 39-1.75 third place jump. Junior Rachel Greff took third in the pole vault for the second consecutive meet.

The other distance runners also performed well. Junior Callie Wells took second in the mile, finishing less than half a second behind the winner, while senior Kate Gorry took third place in the 3,000 meters. Gorry’s time of 9:56.19 was the fastest recorded by a C-USA runner this year.

Bevan said he was pleased with the team’s quick overall improvement.

“I was absolutely delighted with how our kids competed, how our kids performed and where we’re at right now,” he said. “In two weeks it was an awful lot of improvement, virtually from person to person. We were about 90 percent as a team … and any time you’re able to improve 9 out of every 10 people then you’ve had a great meet.”

Running unattached because of NCAA restrictions, senior Funmi Jimoh won the pentathlon ahead of UH’s Rachel Easley. In second place before the 800-meter portion of the competition, Jimoh ran on Easley’s heels for the majority of the race before passing her and sprinting away with the last 100 meters.

End of article

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