By Steve Holt, Sports Writer
In their first meet of the season, the men’s and women’s track and field teams combined to provisionally qualify six individuals and two relay teams for the indoor national meet at the Wes Kittley Invitational Friday in Lubbock.
The women’s team qualified athletes provisionally in four events, along with the 4×400-meter relay team, which won its race with a time of 3 minutes, 56.34 seconds. Senior Trina Cox, the South Central Region champion in cross country, picked up where she left off, winning the women’s mile with a provisional time of 4:59.81. Keva Wilkins won the 400-meter dash with a provisional time of 57.0, while sophomore Shawna-Kaye Thompson won the 55-meter hurdles with an impressive provisional qualifying time of 8.15. In the women’s pole vault, junior Angie Aguilar won the competition by clearing a provisional height of 11-5 3/4.
For the men, Marvin Bien-Aime, the defending outdoor champion and indoor runner-up in the 200-meter dash, won that event Friday with a provisional time of 21.56. Sophomore Vladyslav Gorbenko was third in the long jump with a provisional qualifying mark of 23-6. The men’s 4×400-meter relay also had a successful showing Friday, winning its race easily with a time of 3:17.10, a time the team comprised of Montez Pride, Bien-Aime, Elton Garus-Oab and Delt Cockrell will easily improve on as the season progresses.
Head coach Don Hood, in his first season at the helm, said he came away from the first meet pleased overall with what he saw out of his Wildcat teams.
“We competed hard,” Hood said. “Usually that’s a cop-out saying we didn’t run real good, but we tried hard, but we won a lot of events and were right there at the front of the events we didn’t win. So I was really pleased with what I saw.”
Hood added that the performance Friday is an indicator of both needed improvement and good things ahead.
“Our marks were above average – I wouldn’t go near calling them great yet,” he said. “That tells me we’re going to qualify a good crew of athletes.”
But one aspect of Friday’s Kittley Invitational especially pleased Hood – no ACU injuries.
“Most importantly, we came out healthy,” he said. “As long as you do that, you can live to fight another day. That’s as good a position as we can be in right now.”
Hood will take a group of Wildcat pole vaulters to the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nev., and both teams will return to action Feb. 3-4 at the Frank Sevigne Classic in Lincoln, Neb.
Look for a complete season preview of the men’s and women’s track and field teams in Friday’s Optimist.
