WVU Women Place Third
May 08, 2005 08:57 PM | General
May 8, 2005
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| Regalbuto |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University women’s track coach Jeff Huntoon’s persistence helped the Mountaineers to a third-place finish at this year’s Big East women’s track and field championships at Bauer Track and Field Complex in Piscataway, N.J.
Huntoon filed an official protest after his 4x100-meter relay team of Alexis Noel, Jessica Czaikowski, Shani Boone and Junique Morris was disqualified for running outside their lane. The relay finished the race in third place with a time of 46.71 and more importantly, secured six team points for the Mountaineers.
Huntoon knew the team in violation was Pittsburgh in the next lane wearing similar colored uniforms.
“My first 30 minutes of the morning were spent filing protest forms. They initially said we handed off the baton too early. Then they come back and say the reason that we got disqualified was that we ran out of the zone. It is physically impossible for us to run out of the zone because we almost did hand it off too early,” Huntoon said.
It wasn’t until midway through the meet that a clarification was made and West Virginia was awarded its six points, which helped give the Mountaineers 82 team points to finish just ahead of fourth-place Rutgers with 81 points. Pitt won the meet with 176 followed by second-place Notre Dame with 113.5 points.
West Virginia’s third-place finish matched the 2000 team for its highest-ever finish at the Big East outdoor championships.
In addition to Huntoon's efforts, WVU also got a gutsy performance from sophomore Jessica Czaikowski in both the 100-meter hurdles and 100-meter dash. Czaikowski was winning the hurdles until her trail leg clipped the seventh hurdle and she crashed to the ground. Czaikowski got up and finished the race in eighth place to record what turned out to be the point that decided third place for the Mountaineers.
After getting treatment in the medical tent, Czaikowski returned to record a personal-best time of 11.84 seconds to finish second in the 100-meter dash.
“She got a bunch of raspberries all over her body and I told her, ‘Listen, you’ve only got about 15 minutes and you’ve just got to focus at the beginning. Just make sure you stay in your blocks and then let your emotions take you to the finish line,’” Huntoon said. “She ends up equaling her lifetime personal best and she was really close to the girl from Notre Dame.
“That turned out to be huge at the end. In these big meets she just turns it on,” Huntoon added.
West Virginia got several other outstanding performances on Sunday as well. Senior Jennifer Kemp ran an NCAA Regional qualifying time of 2:08.56 to finish second in the 800-meter run.
“She had a beautiful stretch run and she out-leaned the girl from BC for second place,” said Huntoon.
Megan Metcalfe posted an NCAA Regional qualifying time of 4:27.12 to place second in the 1,500, and junior Nancy Regalbuto stuck her final jump at 1.75 meters to place third in the high jump. That mark also exceeded the NCAA Regional qualifying standard.
“Nancy makes her first three bars and then at the regional qualifying mark at 1.75 (meters) she misses her first one badly,” Huntoon said. “Then she misses her second one and on her third one she can’t get her steps down. She has to loop around three times and there is no way she is going to make it. The yellow flag is up and she’s about to be disqualified because her time is about to run out and then she just rips it and makes the bar.”
Sophomore Rhea Mann finished fifth in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:01.99, the 4x800-meter relay team of Kemp, Metcalfe, Jennifer and Susan Davis placed fourth with a time of 9:01.29, junior Junique Morris finished seventh in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.84 and senior Tara Struyk placed eighth in the 5,000 with a time of 17:13.80.
“I’m just really proud of the girls for the way they performed today with all the adversity we faced,” said Huntoon.
West Virginia returns to the track next weekend to take part in the ECAC outdoor championships.
