Women’s track and field posts strong individual performances at Mt. SAC Relays while many teammates rest
By Chris Nguyen
April 17, 2011 11:46 p.m.
Ida Storm of the UCLA women’s track and field team has become so prolific in the hammer throw that anything short of a first-place finish can be considered a disappointment for the freshman thrower.
Storm has won the event in her past two meets and carried her momentum as the Bruins competed at the Mt. SAC Relays Thursday through Saturday.
Storm finished second overall but didn’t exactly disappoint. Rather, she hoisted a personal best of 205 feet, 5 inches, improving upon her previous record of 204-2 by more than a foot. This mark places her within the top 10 of all throwers in the NCAA thus far.
Likewise, redshirt junior pole vaulter Tori Anthony finished second overall in her event with a mark of 13-7.25, tying her season best. After nursing injuries, Anthony has turned her season around recently to place her name in the conversation for the nation’s best pole vaulters. She is currently the No. 18 pole vaulter in NCAA competition.
“I’m very satisfied to have as many athletes qualified as we do,” coach Jeanette Bolden said. “We are ranked in about nine different events, so even though we don’t have a lot of depth, we have a lot of quality.”
Not to be outdone by the second-place finishes of Storm and Anthony, senior sprinter Joy Eaton joined her teammates by finishing second as well in the 400 meters with a personal-best time of 53.46 seconds. In the same event, senior sprinter Ashlea McLaughlin finished fourth overall with a season-best of 53.86 seconds. Sophomore sprinter Briana Barlow competed in the 400m as well and posted a season-best time of her own of 57.19 seconds.
McLaughlin’s success didn’t end with the 400m. In the 800 meters, she placed eighth overall, crossing the finish line at 2:08.39, a personal best. Redshirt freshman distance runner Allie Lopez placed 50th overall in the 1,500 meters, crossing the finish line first for the Bruins in that event with a time of 4:32.79. Three more Bruins also had excellent finishes in that same event. Freshman distance runners Rachel Butler and Paisley Pettway as well as senior distance runner Lauren Hall all ran personal bests with times of 4:47.39, 4:37.93 and 4:44.67, respectively.
“I’m really satisfied with my middle distance runners. They have been running very consistently, and we’ll be needing them to keep it up,” Bolden said.
In the high jump, freshman jumper Alexis Walker equaled her season best with a jump of 5-7, landing her in a tie for sixth place. Sophomore jumper Mariah Gibson had a clearance of 5-5, three inches short of her personal best, and finished in 16th place overall.
The three-day meet served as a rest meet for many Bruin athletes as UCLA faces a tough schedule in the weeks ahead. With an imminent showdown with rival USC and Pac-10 championships in the near future, Bolden opted to set aside a few of her athletes who have been in constant competition.
“This was just the right time in our training to have a rest meet for some,” Bolden said. “However, we still managed to perform really, really well at a high-level invitational despite resting some of our best.”
