Big Ten trackwomen trio dominates championships, Lady Lions finish sixth

Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois were slated to run ahead of the rest of the conference at the Big Ten Indoor Track Championships and they lived up to their expectations.

Michigan dominated the tournament, finishing with 133 points, 21 points more than last year's winner, Wisconsin. Illinois placed a close third with 110 points. The Lady Lions, who were hoping to contend, finished sixth.

The Lions traveled to East Lansing, Mich., with a number of injuries, necessitating a change in the roster. Injuries aside, the healthy 28 Lions gave it their best shot, said senior Erica Bosler, who is already looking forward to the spring season.

"Hopefully, most of (the injured Lions) will be ready for outdoors," Bosler added.

Bosler represented the highlight of the two-day tournament for the Lions. She placed first in the 600-meters with a time of 1 minute, 30.22 seconds, her season best. She was also on the 4x400 meter relay team that took seventh place.

Other highlights included Shakeema Walker's third-place 41-9¼ triple jump and Kim Hicks fifth-place 48-3¼ shot put. Both performances were enough to provisionally qualify them for nationals.

Also, Brock took fifth in the 400-meters in 55.82, and Mary Jo Faust placed fifth with a 20-pound weight throw of 51-11. Kim Hicks also came away with a fifth-place finish in the shot put with throw 48-3¼.

Penn State also had a number of top 10 finishers. Tiffany Glen ran the 55-meter dash in 7.21, for a seventh-place finish, while Olutoyin Augustus finished sixth in the triple jump with a leap of 40-0. After a sixth-place finish in the pentathlon Saturday, Carleen Martin placed seventh in the high jump, with a jump of 5-4½.

As important, if not more so, than the individual highlights, was the way the Lions pulled together.

"As a team, we performed well, and really supported each other," Bosler said. "One of the main things was that we all got up early Saturday to watch the pentathlon. Not a lot of people are out there to watch that, but we were there for the first event at 9 a.m. cheering each other on."