Women’s track and field ends indoor season, sends only one Bruin to NCAA Indoor Championships
By Marion Patricio
March 5, 2012 12:08 a.m.
For the UCLA women’s track and field team, the indoor season was fleeting despite the gradual improvement in all of its performances.
UCLA will only be sending one athlete to represent the women’s track and field team at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
This weekend, three Bruins competed at the UW Final Qualifier and Iowa State in hopes of reaching the qualifying marks for the NCAA Indoor championships next weekend, but fell short.
At Iowa State, freshman sprinter Kylie Price ran the 60-meter dash in 7.50 seconds. From the preliminary round earlier that day, she improved, earning second place overall.
Price finished her first collegiate indoor season on Saturday with a lifetime best of 7.37, making her 25th in the NCAA. Still, her best mark was 11 milliseconds behind the automatic qualifying mark, and she will not be competing in the NCAA Indoor Championships. Price is one of the Bruins’ young talents and is in good position to have a great outdoor season.
Meanwhile in Seattle, UCLA sent junior pole vaulter Allison Koressel and redshirt senior pole vaulter Tori Anthony to the UW Final Qualifier, in a final attempt to reach the automatic standard of 14-1 1/4.
“We wanted to go and get qualifying marks but that didn’t quite happen,” Koressel said. “It was just a kind of end-of-the-season meet and things just didn’t come together in the way that I wanted.”
Koressel gained second place in the pole vault, clearing 12-9, and attempted the 13-5 mark, but was unable to clear it. She will end the indoor season tied for 26th in the NCAA with a lifetime-best mark of 13-5 3/4.
Anthony was also unable to meet the automatic standard and will not be participating in next week’s indoor championships. Anthony cleared a lifetime-best mark of 13-10 this season, which tied her for 20th in the NCAA.
“Tori Anthony had great heights over her opening bar. (She) just did not get lucky,” assistant coach Anthony Curran said.
“I am taking a little bit (of time) off and then getting ready for outdoors,” Anthony said. “For us, the biggest thing is to jump high in June for outdoors.”
Regarding the upcoming outdoor season, Anthony has high expectations and sees vast improvements in their performances.
Freshman thrower Ida Storm will be the only Bruin representing the women’s team next weekend, after reaching the automatic qualifying throw of 69-7 on Saturday.
The men’s track and field team will send sophomore pole vaulter Mike Woepse and sophomore thrower Alec Faldermeyer to the NCAA Indoor Championships next weekend, while the rest of the women’s team will begin its outdoor season at the Ben Brown Invitational in Fullerton.
