The Penn State women's outdoor track and field team traveled south this weekend to earn six NCAA regional qualifying marks at the Auburn Tiger Classic on Friday and Saturday.
And despite some positive results, Penn State head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan was not enthusiastic about her team's overall performance.
"We're still not quite firing on all cylinders," she said. "As I expressed to the team last night, we've got to do a better job of execution, and I mean that across the board as a team total."
Penn State sophomore Gayle Hunter stood out in the two-day heptathlon event against a small field of four competitors to finish the event, winning five of the seven events on her way to a personal-best and regional qualifying score of 5,419 points. Hunter also set the facility record for most heptathlon points ever at Auburn's Hutsell-Rosen Track.
For the first time this outdoor season, Shana Cox won the 400-meter dash in her return to her signature event. Cox is the reigning Big Ten outdoor champion at 400 meters and posted a regional qualifying time at 52.41 seconds.
"We had her focus on the relays last weekend so she was fresh for that," Alford-Sullivan said. "This weekend she just ran the 400, the 4 x 100 and the 4 x 400. So we're just mixing it up, getting her different levels of competition."
Hurdler Aleesha Barber came in second place in the 400-meter hurdle event at 59.73 seconds, coming in under the regional qualifying time of one minute, 0.82 seconds. Barber just missed the regional qualifying time in the 100-meter hurdle event with a time of 13.97 seconds, five-hundredths of a second slower than the qualifying mark.
"She really executed the [400-meter] race well," Alford-Sullivan said. "In the 100-hurdles it's always a difficult transition from the 60-meter hurdles inside where you only race over five hurdles to 10 hurdles outdoors. She's just having a little trouble getting back up there now. I suspect you're going to see some really good things from her as the season goes on in that event as well."
Penn State's relay squads had a solid weekend, but have room to improve as the 4 x 100-meter relay team of Barber, Dominique Blake, Lauren Burns and Cox missed the regional qualifier by a quarter of a second. The Big Ten indoor champions 4 x 400 relay of Barber, Hunter, Cox and Blake improved on last week's regional qualifying time as they came in second behind Auburn with a time of three minutes, 34.81 seconds.
"We're progressing, we're going in the right direction but I want more from them," Alford-Sullivan said. "They know that so hopefully we'll be producing as this week comes and goes."
