Trackwomen make positive impression

By MIKE MITSTIFER
Collegian Staff Writer

This weekend's Pepsi Indoor Invitational was the second meet of the season for the Penn State women's indoor track team. It also was the second meet that failed to offer the Lady Lions a concrete idea of how well they had fared, since athletes from the post-collegiate level joined the 26 highly regarded universities in attendance. As a result, the meet did not record team finishes.

However, for the second meet in a row, the Lions made an exceedingly positive impression at the event.

While they failed to take home any first-place finishes from Blacksburg, Va., the Lions did tally eight top-10 finishes individually and one in a team event.

For the second meet in a row, senior Shakeema Walker led the way for the Lions, as she was the only team member who recorded a pair of top-10 finishes, giving her four top-10 finishes in the two meets this season.

Walker's triple jump distance of 12.37 meters was good enough for seventh place, while her 5.74-meter jump got her a 10th place finish in the long jump.

Toyin Augustus also recorded a top-10 finish in the triple jump with a distance of 11.76 meters, her second top-10 finish in the event this year.

Susanne Heyer received a sixth-place finish in the 800-meter dash, finishing in 2-minutes 11.55 seconds. Heyer's cross country teammate Allison Carr finished ninth in the mile run. Carr, a senior, finished in 4:58:22.

The high jump proved quite successful for the Lions as Jen Aylward and Felicia Cooksey both finished in the top 10. The freshman, Aylward, tallied Penn State's top individual place, finishing second with a jump of 1.73 meters.

"I wasn't really sure where I'd be when I got to the meet, but once it got started I wasn't really surprised," said Aylward.

Cooksey placed sixth in the event with a leap of 1.68 meters.

Also representing the freshman class was Robbin Shomper, whose distance of 14.80 meters in the weight throw was good enough for ninth position.

Penn State's women's distance medley team recorded a time of 11:44:33 for a fifth-place finish. In so doing, it brought the total of top-10 finishes for the team up to nine, one short of the total it amassed at its last meet. That performance from two weeks ago brought high praise from coach Teri Jordan, as did this one.

"She was really pleased," said Aywald, "There were a lot of good finishes."

With the team off to a great start, Jordan is receiving praise as well as giving it.

"She's a really great coach," said Shomper. "She's really positive, she makes us look at what we have accomplished and how far we've come."

The start has left coaches and players looking confidently toward the remainder of the season.

"Everyone's really excited and concentrating on scoring points during Big Tens," said Aywald, referring to the Big Ten Championships beginning Feb. 20 in Columbus, Ohio. "That's our big meet."