The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/sports/2007/02/09/men_track_beat_uh

February 9, 2007 > Sports > Zukoski notches first collegiate win at UH

Zukoski notches first collegiate win at UH

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

Sophomore Andrew Zukoski’s first collegiate victory was one of several early-season bests the men’s track and field team notched at the Houston Indoor Invitational. The meet, held last Saturday at the University of Houston’s Yeoman Fieldhouse, was only Rice’s second of the season, but the Owls made big strides nonetheless.

Zukoski won the 5,000 meters with a time of 15 minutes, 49.71 seconds. Senior Pablo Solares took a week off from his quest for an NCAA automatic berth in the mile, placing second in the 3,000 meters with a time of 8:21.06. Senior Luke Stadel also finished in the top-three of his event, throwing 55 feet, 2.75 inches in the shot put.

“A lot of [teams] have already done three or four meets by this point,” head coach Jon Warren (Jones ‘88) said. “For the second meet, it was pretty good. Little things across the board are coming along really, really well.”

This weekend, the Owls will split up for two separate meets. The sprinters, vaulters, jumpers and throwers will head to the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, N.M. to compete in the Lobo Invitational. Meanwhile, the longer distance runners will head to the Dempsey Indoor Arena in Seattle, Wash. for the Washington Invitational.

Warren said he split the team to take advantage of the conditions. The Lobo Invitational will be run nearly a mile above sea level. The thin air wreaks havoc on the distance runners, but not so much for sprinters, and since marks for sprinters tend to be better at altitude, Warren said he had no problems sending them to New Mexico. The distance runners are headed for a favorable site, as Dempsey Indoor Arena is one of the most renowned track facilities in the United States. It features a 307-meter MONDO track that, because it is made of natural rubber instead of petroleum-based synthetic material, produces lower times despite the heavier sea-level air.

This weekend’s meets are the team’s first true test leading up to the Conference USA Indoor Championships Feb. 23-24. If the Owls are to compete with the University of Texas-El Paso and the University of Houston at that meet, they will have to get strong performances out of their sprinters, each of whom showed marked improvement in last week’s meet. Juniors Bubba Heard and Gary Anderson, both members of the football team, clocked personal best times in the 200-meter and the 60-meter preliminaries, respectively. The coaches decided not to run Anderson in the finals of the 60 as a precautionary measure — he suffered from an undisclosed minor injury. Warren said he is looking forward to seeing Heard and Anderson run on a faster track.

“They’ve developed well over the last two weeks we’ve had them out here,” Warren said. “We’re very excited about what they’re going to do this weekend on a MONDO track, especially Bubba on those curves.”

Another important showing at the Houston Invitational came from freshman Philip Adam in the heptathlon. Making his debut in the event, Adam finished second among collegiates with 4,937 points, 98 points behind the Rice record set last year by Ryan Walsh (Brown ‘05). With Walsh now gone, the Owls will need Adam to produce in the heptathlon — and later the decathlon — once the C-USA meet rolls around.

Zukoski’s first-place finish in the 5,000 was impressive, but he said the fact that most of the top long-distance runners at the meet chose to run in the 3,000 diminished the feat.

“I wasn’t that surprised,” Zukoski said. “Almost [all the distance runners] on our team, except for me, ran the 3k, and almost everyone else from the other teams ran the 3k, so I knew it was gong to be a pretty empty field.”

Five Rice runners competed in the 3,000, but only Solares and sophomore Aaron Robson finished in the top ten. Of those five, Warren said only Robson comes close to being a true 3,000 runner. Everyone else ran off-distance as part of their preparation for the C-USA meet.

“It’s unusual, but given the circumstances and how people’s training have gone, we have a lot of guys I’d rather run in the [3,000 meters],” Warren said. “I didn’t want to have the milers run a mile [at UH] and then run a mile this week. … The way the training’s gone, some guys didn’t really need to move up to the 800, and some guys who’d run the 800 previously needed to move up.”

End of article

Back to top