Team hits stride, ready for Mt. SAC
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 19, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 MARY CIECEK/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Freshman
Sheena Johnson competes in the long jump at the
Bruins’ home meet on April 14.
By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The Mt. SAC Relays attracts the best track and field athletes in
the nation, and the UCLA women’s track and field team will be
a part of it.
While a handful of Bruin athletes will compete at the Pomona
Invitational, the Long Beach Invitational, and at Azusa Pacific,
the main event will take place in Walnut, Calif., where Olympians
like Marion Jones will compete in the same stadium with as many as
30 collegiate teams at Mt. SAC.
“I have high hopes that athletes on the border line, in
terms of qualifying for nationals, will have big breakthroughs this
weekend,” Distance Coach Eric Peterson said.
“We’re really looking for people to move into the
higher end level that will give them confidence that they’re
ready to move up.”
With just two weekends before the crosstown-showdown with USC,
the Bruins are tuning up for the challenges that lie ahead.
Peterson looks to junior Ysanne Williams to step up in the open
800-meter at Mt. SAC. Williams, who won the 800m race last weekend
at home, is progressing well in training and in position to get a
big mark.
Among Williams’ competition is senior Brigita Langerholc
of USC, who placed fourth in the 2000 Olympics competing for
Slovenia at 1:58.51 and is ranked 14th in the world in the
800m.
Senior Michelle Perry will be taking on a challenge of her own
at the Azusa Pacific meet that started Thursday and will continue
today. Perry will compete in the heptathlon in her last outdoor
season at UCLA. The All-American hurdler is the first Bruin who has
a legitimate chance to score for her team at both the conference
and national levels in the event since Sheila Burrell, who was
fourth in the event at NCAA outdoor in 1995 and recently made the
U.S. Olympic team after placing second at the Olympic Trials.
This weekend falls at about the halfway mark for the outdoor
season, and so far, the athletes are rising to the occasion. Junior
Tracy O’Hara was named Pac-10 Field Athlete of the Week this
week for her 13-foot-9 1/4 inches NCAA automatic qualifying
mark.
Currently, senior Christina Tolson leads the nation in the shot
put (56-6 1/4) and is second in the hammer throw (207-11) and will
compete at Mt. SAC in both events.
There are six Bruins besides Tolson and O’Hara currently
in the top 10 in the country in their respective events: freshman
Adia McKinnon in the 400m (No. 6, 52.88); freshman Lena Nilsson in
the 1500m (No. 10, 4:23.17); senior Michelle Perry in the 100m
hurdles (No. 8, 13.30) and 400m hurdles (No. 8, 57.91); senior
Erica Hoernig (No. 6, 13-1 1/2) and junior Heather Sickler (No. 10,
12-9 1/2) in the pole vault; and sophomore Chaniqua Ross in the
shot put (No. 5, 53-0) and discus (No. 7, 173-11).
After the meets this weekend, there may be even more.
