Trackwomen invade ECAC Championships

By MIKE MITSTIFER
Collegian Staff Writer

This weekend represents the bell lap in the women's indoor track season.

While Penn State provisional NCAA Indoor National qualifiers Shakeema Walker and Deshaya Williams will be looking for automatic qualifying marks, 12 other Lady Lions will travel to the Reggie Lewis Track and Field Center this weekend in hopes of adding their names to the list of participants headed to Indianapolis.

Penn State will be one of 66 schools participating in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships beginning at 9 a.m. tomorrow in Boston, Mass. Only athletes who have met NCAA qualification standards for their events may compete this weekend in this last opportunity to qualify for nationals.

Not all of the 14 Lions heading to the meet this weekend can be looked at as major factors in the fight for spots in nationals. Some, mostly underclassmen, are just looking for experience that should prove invaluable in the future.

"Experience and learning how to pace is huge," Penn State coach Teri Jordan said. "You have to learn yourself, your race and control your nerves."

Exhibit A is freshman distance runner Stacie Bouchard.

Despite having problems getting out of the blocks too quickly and tiring late in races, Bouchard has had a great deal of early success in both cross country and indoor track. It would be tough to blame Bouchard if she let just a little of that success go to her head.

It hasn't.

"I'm not really concerned with how I place individually," Bouchard said. "I just want to contribute to the team in the 3,000 and 5,000 (meters) and score some points."

Ordinarily, that statement could be dismissed as an athlete simply saying what the coaches want to hear. But this is a meet where even the coaches say team standings don't matter.

"(Bouchard)'s shown nice improvement in the 5,000," said Jordan. "We just want to give her a chance to improve, to gain experience in the bigger meets."

Bouchard's cross country teammate Erin Davis will also be making the trip, but not at full strength. Having battled respiratory problems throughout the season, Davis is said to be at just 80 percent going into ECACs, seemingly keeping her out of contention for the qualifying positions.

Walker, who is provisionally qualified in both the long jump and triple jump, contributed to Penn State's fifth-place finish last year at ECACs with a first-place finish in the triple jump. Walker will only compete in the long jump this weekend, resting for nationals.

After narrowly missing qualifying for nationals at last weekend's Big Ten Championships, Toyin Augustus will look to improve on the fifth-place effort she posted at ECACs last year in the 55-meter high hurdles. Felicia Cooksey posted a pair of fourth-place finishes last week in the high jump and pentathlon, and now looks to up her marks enough to punch her ticket to nationals.

Distance runners Allison Carr and Susanne Heyer are potential qualifiers in the mile, while the Penn State distance medley team could find its way to Indianapolis as a unit.