Women's track competes with elite

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by David Gordon

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Qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Championships is quite an accomplishment.

It means that the athlete is one of the top performers in a particular event for the season.

She gets to compete against the best of the best in a four-day event.

Junior TaNisha Mills may be very busy during that meet.

She has already earned provisional qualifications in three individual and two relay events.

If there are not enough runners and teams meeting higher automatic standards, those may qualify her for the NCAA meet at the end of May.

So far she has nailed down times in all of the sprints (100, 200, 400) and in both sprint relays (4x100 and 4x400). Her time in the 100 meters was a Rice school record.

Mills may not be alone in Eugene, Ore., where the meet willl be held. So far the team has 11 provisional qualifiers.

New to the list since last weekend's Mount San Antonio College meet, one of the largest meets in the country, were Mills in the 400-meters, freshman Shaquandra Roberson in the 1,500 meters and Katy Eklof in the 10,000 meters.

Collegiate teams as well as track clubs from around the country travel to Mount San Antonio in California to compete.

The crowd for the event ranges from 12,000 to 15,000 spectators.

Mills finished second in her heat and fifth overall with a time of 54.01 seconds.

Two teammates, junior Melissa Straker and senior Vonda Newhouse, finished sixth and 10th, respectively.

The 4x400 team of junior Andrea Blackett, Straker, Newhouse and Mills improved on a previous provisional qualification.

They finished second in their heat and second overall with a season's best time of 3:36.01.

Roberson won the 1,500 meters with a personal best time of 4:21.07. The mark was nine seconds better than her previous best time.

Eklof finished 12th in a field of 34 runners.

She said that running in a larger crowd than usual may have helped her.

"This meet is really unique. There is a huge crowd at the front," Eklof said. "We went out with the hopes of qualifying a lot of people for nationals."

Eklof's time in the 10,000 may stand. Running the race takes a lot out a runner, and she is preparing for the end of the season. She is looking to run a 5,000-meter race and qualify in that event as well.

Blackett won her heat and had the third best time in the 400 hurdles.

Senior Dionne Wright finished second in her heat and had the fifth- best mark in the 100 meters.

Senior Holly Welch ran a season's best 2:14.19 in the 800 meters to finish 21st.

Senior Stacy Swank and junior Alex Gajewski ran in the 3,000 meters.

Swank's 9:47.82 earned 23rd. Gajewski ran a 10:23.91 to take 42nd.

The team will have one more meet before traveling to Lubbock for the Southwest Conference Outdoor Championships.

On the schedule is a May 4 trip across town for the Mizuno Invitational. Members of the team who are just shy of qualifying provisionally may travel out of town to try one last time to better their times. But time is running short.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the April 26, 1996 issue.

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