Saturday the BG women’s track team traveled to Ann Arbor to compete in the Red Simmons Invitational at the University of Michigan. No team scores were kept, but Michigan seemed to be the dominant winner, coming in first place in six events. The Falcons used this meet experimentally, running athletes in different events. They were faced with tough competition from schools in the Mid-American Conference (Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, and Kent State) as well as teams from other conferences, including Pittsburgh, Michigan, Michigan State, Grand Valley, Hillsdale and South Florida.
“Overall, we didn’t have a stellar meet, but we were training a great deal this week,” head coach Scott Sehmann explained. “[The meet] wasn’t scored, so our objective was to gain experience in different events.”
Many Falcons had the chance to run in a race other than their normal event, which was one of Sehmann’s goals for the team. Another important team goal is consistency in performance.
“One of our primary goals is consistency from week to week. For those running alike events, we are improving, but we still want to see times drop,” Sehmann said.
As the Falcons strive for improvement, many of them had excellent results at Saturday’s invitational, including one new school record. Valerie Holland posted the new record in the 60 meter sprint preliminaries with a time of 7.68. She finished fourth in the event. Sprinter Amber Walker placed fourth in the 200 meters with a time of 25.38, a season’s best.
“It was the fastest this year,” Walker said of her 200 meter time. “We did a fantastic job, I believe. We all stood up to our potential and there were a lot of good results people wanted.” Despite the excellent performance, she will continue to pursue high goals for herself as the team gets ready for the MAC indoor championships. “My goals are improving my time and staying positive,” Walker said.
Hurdler Alicia Taylor followed up last weekend’s school record performance with a fourth place finish in the 60 meter hurdles. Distance standout Amber Culp ran a personal best 10:21.99 in the 3000 meters.
In field events, freshman jumper Erica Wilson finished sixth in the long jump and tenth in the high jump. In the triple jump, Veronica Vance took seventh, followed by teammate Nicole Standback who placed tenth.
Even though the Falcons came away with no first place finishes, they had the opportunity to run against some of the country’s tougher competition.
“It was a good experience running against some bigger schools and athletes from the Big East. We got a chance to see how we matched up to other teams from around the country,” Sehmann said.
The Falcons’ next meet is this Friday at Bowling Green.
