Chatman qualifies for Regionals as track has strong showing

By Roger Sievers
Western Herald

Competing on a couple of beautiful days in Michigan, the Western Michigan University women’s track and field team tried some new things at the Central Collegiates in Ypsilanti and fared very well this past weekend.

“It goes to show what we can do when we have really nice weather; everybody was having a good day,” said WMU women’s track and field coach Kelly Lycan.

Victoria Chatman became the fourth individual athlete to qualify for the NCAA Mideast Regionals, as she won the 400-meter dash with her qualifying time of 54.01. She previously qualified as a member of the 4 x 400-relay team along with seniors Danielle Brown and Jennifer Sabra and sophomore Leya Munwam.

Chatman cruised by four University of Michigan runners to take first place by .82 seconds. Chatman also finished in fourth place in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.66.
“It is easy to forget she is just a sophomore,” said Lycan. “It is really great to see her do good. She looks relaxed out there.”

Last weekend at the Searay Relays, senior Jennifer Roberts turned in a personal best in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:39.76. This weekend, Roberts bettered that time by over eight seconds, as she ran a time of 4:31.90.

That time was good enough for second place and is the fastest 1,500-meter time since Lycan has been at Western Michigan University.

Roberts is knocking on the door for qualifying for the NCAA Regionals, as she is only a couple seconds away.

“She’s on fire right now,” said Lycan. “She just needed to get in the right race. I am really happy for her. She has fought hard and has been rewarded with a good senior year.”

Junior Alexis Brown took first place in the triple jump, just five minutes after running in the 4 x 400 relay. A scheduling error forced Brown to jump soon after the relay, but she caught her breath and in her last jump she jumped 36-04, which was good enough for the win.

Brown also took third in the high jump with a height of 5-07.

“Alexis is becoming really consistent in the high jump,” said Lycan. “She is very close to reaching the regional qualifying mark.”

Senior Jenny Friday had a personal best in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 11:52.30. That was a 20 second improvement over her previous best of 12:14.60.

Sophomore Sarah Morris was the top collegiate finisher and third overall in the discus with a distance of 146-09. Fellow sophomore Linsay Bloor, finished second in the javelin and Stephanie Mitchell took third in the shot put with a distance of 42-07.50.

The 4 x 400-relay team ran with a different squad, but finished in third place. The lead went to Alexis Brown with Munwam running second, sophomore Ashley Hunault running third and sophomore Stephanie Okolo anchored the final leg.

“I’m proud of the 4 x 400,” said Lycan. “It was new people and they competed really well. They were really aggressive.”

Up next for the Brown and Gold is a trip to Philadelphia to compete in the 114th running of the Penn Relays.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Apr 20 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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