Track and field takes third place at Central Michigan University Invitational

By Nicholas Grenke
Western Herald

A disappointing team performance overshadowed some personal highlights by the Western Michigan University indoor track and field team during an underperforming finish at the Central Michigan Invitational on Saturday.

The Broncos took third place with 96 points to fall behind Central Michigan University’s 160 points and Eastern Michigan University’s 111 points. Rounding out the meet was Kent State University with 53 ½ points and Oakland University with 5 ½ points.

“It was kind of a good old-fashioned whooping,” Bronco coach Kelly Lycan said. “We were unprepared for the intensity of the meet.”

After a season opening MAC win against Toledo University earlier this month and continued improvement early in the season, the Broncos went into Mt. Pleasant with high hopes to upstage rival CMU and put their imprint on the MAC conference. However, over-aggression and a lack of focus from the team brought the Brown and Gold back to the ground and showed their youth and relative inexperience.

“It was one of those ‘welcome to the MAC’ type moments,” Lycan said. “We’re a young team and we need our freshman to step up and not act like freshmen; however, the mistakes we made were aggressive mistakes. Along with effort you need to learn how to execute under pressure.”

The Broncos were once again led by senior thrower Irene Cooper, who won first place with her best throw of the season with a distance of 65 feet, one and a half inches. It was the latest effort of the MAC’s three time defending field athlete of the week to move towards national NCAA qualifying.

Junior Ashley Hunault also place first in the long jump with a distance of 19’ 4 ½” feet.

The distance runners had a rough day in completion that was highlighted by freshman Karen Sheehan’s second place finish in the 800 meters.  Sheehan began with an early push but was overtaken by a CMU runner near the finish.

“She made a courageous move that was more guts than brains,” Lycan said. “She’s going to be a good distance runner but she’s still learning.”

In the 4×400 relay, the Broncos also fought to a first place finish behind the efforts of Jerirsha Tucker, Victoria Chatman, Iris Campbell and Hunault. In the final lap of the race, Chatman overtook the lead for the victory.

Senior Alexis Brown took center stage at the end of the day during the very last competition – the triple jump. Trailing CMU on her final attempt, Brown hit a distance of 38 feet, nine and a half inches to pass by her competitor from CMU by two inches for the win.

“Even though we had some really poor performances to start the meet, we really bounced back at the end,” Lycan said. “It’s a shame that some of the individual performance get overshadowed by the blah standing of the team.”

Before the meet, Western Michigan announced that it had nominated team captains for the rest of the season with seniors Cooper, Michelle Mathewson and Jennifer Roberts.

“From now on, maybe we’ll get some well-needed leadership for our young team,” Lycan said.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=14259

Posted by heraldstaff on Jan 30 2010. 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

http://HeraldStaff