Women's track races to victory
The women's track and field team has been steadily improving over their last few meets.
They were on the verge of breaking many of the marks necessary to earn provisional qualification for the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Reaching those marks would at least qualify team members for the championships if not enough people achieve the automatic standards.
At the University of Texas Relays two weeks ago, they appeared ready to finally break through, but cold weather canceled those plans.
This weekend, however, the team's sprinters left treadmarks on the track.
TaNisha Mills, who has been hampered by a lingering foot injury, broke both the school and meet records while winning the 100-meter race.
The mark replaces the school record time of 11.59 seconds recorded by Katrice Harris in 1985.
Mills' time of 11.44 also earned her NCAA provisional qualification. More importantly, it earned her a June trip to Atlanta for the Olympic trials.
Mills gained another provisional qualification by winning the 200 meters with a 23.44.
Dionne Wright placed second to Mills in the 100-meter race.
Wright ran a season-best 11.51 to also earn a provisional NCAA qualification.
"Conditions were great," Mills said. "An assistant coach told us before we left that if we were on we could qualify for nationals.
"Everyone seemed focused. It was my best meet in a long, long time."
Mills was not the only team member to rewrite the Rice record books.
Cherita Howard had the best long jump in Owl history, placing third in the meet with a leap of 21-1 1/4, exceeding her previous personal best by more than a foot.
The mark replaces Sonya Henry's 20-6 1/2 leap recorded in 1990.
The long jump was a national record for her home country of Barbados.
It also qualifies Howard to represent Barbados at the Olympics in June.
Howard also won the triple jump competition with a season-best mark of 41-6 1/2. Both jumps met provisional standards.
"One of my coaches guesses what fueled [my performance] was anger from an incident during the past week," she said.
"But it may have been the conditions. It was nice and sunny and there was a good tail wind."
Trisha Harris' discus throw of 159-6 earned another provisional qualification, giving her a third-place finish.
The quartet of Mills, Melissa Straker, Andrea Blackett and Wright broke the meet record by recording a 44.98 in the 4x100 relay.
The first-place time earned Rice its final provisional mark of the meet for a total of seven.
Freshman Shaquandra Roberson led a trio of runners finishing at the top of the 1,500-meter field. Her time of 4:32.81 placed her first in the field.
Stacy Swank (4:43.67) and Katy Eklof (4:47.61) finished third and fourth, respectively.
Vonda Newhouse ran a season-best 56.48 to win the 400 meters. Freshman Chaundra Frank placed ninth in the race with a 1:00.92.
Holly Welch took second in the 800 meters with a 2:14.74 mark. Kari Vigerstol placed seventh, with a time of 2:22.
Frank also represented the team in the high jump, taking eighth with a 5-5 1/4.
Rosita Hogan eclipsed her personal best in both the long jump and the triple jump.
She earned fourth and 10th place with leaps of 18-10 3/4 and 40-5 1/2.
Alexis Smith finished fourth in the 3,000 meters with a 10:57.37. Blackett recorded a fifth-place 14.04 in the 100-meter hurdles.
"We are real happy right now, but we are heading into a tough week," Head Coach Victor Lopez said. "Everyone is busy with finals and practice.
"But we are training very well. We are showing good competitive form. Hopefully we can carry this momentum to the conference championships and nationals."
The team will have an opportunity to improve upon their qualifying marks at this weekend's Mt. SAC meet in Walnut, Calif.
There will be collegiate teams from all over the country as well as many unattached runners.
"There will be a lot of good competition there," Mills said.
This item appeared in the Sports section of the April 19, 1996 issue.
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