Track returns mixed results from NCAA
The men's team finished in fifth place, the best finish ever for a Rice team.
In the women's meet, Louisiana State University scored a total of 48 points to capture the championship, while the Owls could garner a mere 11 points, good only for 17th place.
The men's team had no chance to catch the defending national championship team from the University of Arkansas.
The Razorbacks set an NCAA record by scoring 94 points, blowing away the competition.
The second-place team from the University of Tennessee could collect only 40 points.
Rice finished with a total of 24 points, just behind the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of California at Los Angeles.
If it were not for a untimely injury, the men's team could very easily have finished in either third or fourth place.
Junior Bryan Bronson pulled up in the 200-meter dash with a leg injury and could not finish.
Bronson's injury also hurt the chances of the 4x400-meter relay team, of which he is a member, as it did not run.
Junior Kareem Streete-Thompson placed second in the long jump with an effort of 26-8.75. He finished well behind Arkansas jumper Eric Walter's 27-8 distance, the longest jump of the year by a collegian.
Streete-Thompson, considered a favorite to capture the 55-meter sprint had to settle for a disappointing fourth-place finish with a time of 6.24.
Streete-Thompson was not pleased with either of his events.
"I was pissed off, I was not happy," he said about the long jump. "I wasn't aggressive. I wasn't running very fast on the runway, not as fast as I should have been."
"It didn't go well in the 55 either. The blocks slipped in both the preliminaries and the semifinals and I had to play catch-up," he said. "In the final, I had a bad start and that messed me up. You can't play catch-up in a 55-meter race."
Other scorers for Rice included Chris Jones' second-place finish in the 400-meter run. Jones' time was a personal-best 46.37.
Ivory Angello placed fifth in the triple jump with a jump of 53-6.
The brightest spot for Rice was junior Candace Lessmeister's second-place finish in the mile. Lessmeister ran a personal-best 4:41.41 time.
"We gave her instructions to stay in contact with the leaders and to avoid early traffic," said Women's Track Head Coach Victor Lopez. "With about 600 meters to go, Candace felt good and she went ahead in the pack up to fourth."
"She finished a very strong second -- no one was challenging her. She ran a very smart race."
The 4x400-meter relay team, consisting of TaNisha Mills, Vonda Newhouse, Andrea Blackett and co-captain Pam Brooks, finished in sixth place.
Both Lessmeister and the relay team were named All-Americans, a title bestowed upon the top eight finishers in each event.
Lessmeister will return next year and the relay team has two freshmen and one sophomore coming back, so the women's track team has a solid nucleus for the future.
"I'm very happy with the outcome of the indoor season," said Lopez. "The only goal that we didn't achieve was winning the conference. The future looks very good for us. The showing of the freshmen is very encouraging."
Men's Head Coach Steve Straub considers the indoor season a success for his team as well.
"We had a great indoor season," said Straub. "I think it was the best we've ever had overall, not only in terms of the guys who went to the nationals, but we also had six or eight others that didn't qualify [for Nationals] who had good indoor seasons."
"It was good to see the progress that some individuals made."
This item appeared in the Sports section of the March 18, 1994 issue.
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