Clearing Hurdles
June 03, 2004 01:51 PM | General
June 3, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Jessica Czaikowski already had her bags packed and was ready to head back home to Canada for the summer when she got a call the other day from West Virginia University assistant track coach Pat Itanyi.
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| Jessica Czaikowski ran a personal-best time of 13.58 in the 100 hurdles last weekend at the NCAA East Regional Championships. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
“Jess,” Pat began, "you’re going to nationals.”
“You’re joking, right?” Czaikowski answered.
“No, it’s true.”
Some good fortune and some very good running has helped Czaikowski become one of 28 participants in the 100-meter hurdles at the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships set to begin next Wednesday in Austin, Texas.
Asked to explain her rapid rise, third-year Mountaineer coach Jeff Huntoon simply shakes his head, “This is one of those great stories that ranks right up there,” he admitted.
Czaikowski is part of the migration of talented Canadian runners that have made their way down to West Virginia University. It began with All-American distance runner Bob Donker in the early 1990s and his success soon attracted more Canadian standouts. This year’s women’s roster features five Canadians and of those five, three -- Czaikowski, Jennifer Kemp and Tara Struyk -- make up this year’s group of NCAA qualifiers.
Another Canadian, six-time All-American Megan Metcalfe, would have made it four except she decided to redshirt the outdoor season to concentrate on academics (she’s majoring in physical therapy).
Jessica was a natural all-around athlete competing at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School in Tottenham, Ontario, where she served as captain of the volleyball, basketball and soccer teams. She was considered one of the top basketball players in Ontario as a 5-foot-8 forward, but it was on the track that she showed the most promise.
She ran the 100, 200, 100 hurdles, 300 and 400 hurdles and also did some jumping. Huntoon soon found out about her and convinced her to sign a scholarship before she won the provincial championships with a time of 13.93 in the 100 hurdles. She had also made visits to Washington State and Utah State before choosing the Mountaineers.
Even though Czaikowski ran her fast time on lower hurdles, Huntoon was intrigued by her raw ability. Pat Itanyi and Stacian Brown are the only two WVU runners to have ever cracked 14 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles and both qualified for nationals. And Itanyi is the most decorated women’s track athlete in school history having won an outdoor national title in the long jump and earning All-America honors seven times.
In Jessica Czaikowski, Huntoon definitely saw something he could work with.
She came to WVU as a freshman in 2003 and was expected to help the team last year, but painful shin splints forced her to take a medical redshirt. She also admits it was tough adapting to the higher hurdles. The time away helped her shins heal and also gave her an opportunity to get better adjusted to running a somewhat different kind of race.
“I came out fresh and started on the bigger hurdles so it wasn’t anything major,” she said.
Czaikowski’s first eye opening performance came at ECAC indoors where she placed second in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.41 and also finished fifth in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.65.
She admits that performance may have been the turning point in her season, “I ended up second in the hurdles that day which was very unexpected,” Czaikowski admitted. “I had a very good race that day.”
Czaikowski began the outdoor season with a Big East-qualifying time of 14.27 in the preliminaries of the Raleigh Relays, and trimmed her time to 14.16 a week later after a second-place finish at the Ohio State Invitational.
She produced her first sub-14 of the spring on a fast track at the Sea Ray Relays in Knoxville, Tenn., placing 10th with a time of 13.90. That mark also qualified her for the NCAA East Regionals in Gainesville, Fla.
She cut another six-hundredths of a second off her time with a 13.84 clocking in the Big East outdoor preliminaries.
That set the stage for her most dramatic improvement of the season at NCAA Regionals last weekend. She ran a personal-best time of 13.58 in the preliminaries to advance to the finals where she eventually placed seventh.
“It was very unexpected that I made it to the finals; I didn’t think I would,” she admitted.
“We went to the prelims on Friday and I said to her, ‘Hey, Jess there’s just two-tenths of a second between you and the person who is going to be eighth and gets into the finals. That could be you as easily as anyone else.’ Now who knew she was going to set a PR by almost three-tenths of a second?” said an amazed Huntoon.
Czaikowski offers this explanation, “We haven’t had really good weather down here in West Virginia and we finally got some good weather to run. I’ve been feeling good and training real hard the last couple of weeks doing different things with Jeff.”
She has dropped six-tenths of a second off her time in a race that lasts just 12 or 13 seconds. That is like having a shortstop who normally hits 10 home runs a year all of the sudden smack 40. What is more amazing is that Huntoon believes she can run even faster.
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| Jessica has the third-fastest time in school history, trailing just All-American Pat Itanyi and Staciann Brown. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
“Now the next five-tenths are a whole heck of a lot harder than the first five-tenths,” he admitted. “If she was really clean then I would say this is it for her. But she’s doing some things technically that aren’t right. She’s got three more years to figure it out.”
Czaikowski says she is really beginning to understand the finer points of hurdling.
“I’m really just starting to get into the fundamentals and the techniques more with Jeff because he’s been kind of working with me one on one,” she said. “He’s helped me a lot.”
Still, Czaikowski thought her season was finished after placing seventh at regionals. Just the top five performers from each regional and a handful of at-large participants qualify for nationals.
Then she found out that South Carolina’s Lashinda Demus and Villanova’s Monique Morgan pulled out of the 100 hurdles at nationals, opening up a spot for her in the 28-member field.
“From what I understand, Demus is going to try and win the 400-meter hurdles and is also competing in two relays and the girl from Villanova is going home to compete in the Jamaican Junior Nationals,” said Huntoon. “So it’s a wonderful surprise for Jess and it’s something I’m sure she’s going to make the most of.”
In reality she will have an uphill battle making it past the preliminaries. Czaikowski’s best mark is still nearly a full second slower than LSU’s Lolo Jones and Texas’ Nichole Denby’s identical times of 12.78. And a total of eight runners in the field have broken 13 seconds.
Czaikowski admits she is going to be really nervous before the race.
“Oh yeah,” she laughed.
Jessica got a first-hand report from teammate Jen Kemp on what to expect at nationals. That has only added to her concern.
“She was telling me how big the meet is and how many people will be in the stands ... yeah, I’ll be pretty nervous.”
Among those watching will be her parents Wolfe and Wendy. Jessica says they made it down to Florida to see her run last weekend and her mother has already been on the phone looking into flights to Austin, Texas.
“Last weekend was very exciting for them to get to see me run two races,” she said.
Maybe her family can watch her run a couple of more races next week? “I don’t know, but that would be nice,” she laughed.
Huntoon for one thinks it’s possible, “She can squeeze a little bit more out of what she’s got at nationals,” he said. “Regardless, this will be a good experience for her. She’s had a lot of fun this year. She’s learned a lot and you can just see the steps she’s taking forward.”
