ONLINE EXTRA: Women’s Track

By Jeff Eisenberg
Daily Bruin Contributor

Several hours after last Saturday’s hammer throw was over,
a dejected Cari Soong stood in the middle of Drake Stadium coming
to grips with her performance. Sure the 5-foot-9 sophomore had
handily won the event by nearly 12 feet despite barely having
recovered from the effects of a crippling flu, but her winning
throw of 190-feet-5-inches was just not good enough.

“Today was a wake-up call,” said Soong, whose top
throw was nearly 19 feet less than her winning mark the previous
week in Arizona. “I need to keep hitting the weights and
working hard to get where I need to be.”

Not being satisfied with anything less than the best has been a
hallmark of recent Bruin teams, and heading into Sunday’s
Mount SAC Relays, an invitational event based on previous marks
throughout the season, the 2002 squad appears to be no
exception.

“We’re just starting to inch our way along and wake
up a little bit,” said Jeannette Bolden, head coach of the
No. 2 Bruins. “I’m looking for some faster times out of
everyone at Mount SAC.”

With stiff competition from throughout the nation, UCLA will
surely be tested; however, the warm conditions in Walnut, Calif.
should be ideal to score well. Bolden expects most of the Bruins to
approach or even eclipse their personal records on Sunday as they
continue to prepare for the upcoming dual meet with top-ranked USC
as well as the Pac-10 Championships in May.

In particular, Bolden hopes that freshman sprinter Monique
Henderson and sophomore hurdler Sheena Johnnson can improve on last
weekend’s marks. Like Soong, both won their respective events
rather easily, but with times that were not all that
impressive.

If the Bruins hope to defeat USC at Drake Stadium on May 4 and
ultimately win the NCAA outdoor national championship that has
eluded them recently, athletes like Soong must perform at a high
level every week.

“Anybody can have a bad meet, and Cari was coming off of a
very serious illness,” said throwing coach Art Venegas.
“I just told her to make sure that she doesn’t have a
performance like that again.”