The women sprinters have made a name for themselves recently, dominating last weekend at the Florida Relays and setting a school record in the 4x100-meter relay. The women continued that success this weekend at Bucknell University.
The track and field team traveled to Lewisburg, Pa. to compete in the Bucknell Bison Outdoor Classic. It was a showing of the usual suspects for the Bulls, with the throwers and sprinters performing amongst the top ranks of the meet's participants.
In all, the Bulls won five events, but it was the 4x100 team that made history.
That team, consisting of junior Jamiee McClary, senior Anna Holmes, junior Brooklyn Ventura, and sophomore Crystal Graham finished in 45.94 seconds, beating out the Cornell 'A' team by four tenths of a second.
That mark not only broke a school record, but was also the best time ever recorded at Bucknell Stadium.
Ventura doubled her success, winning a second event, the 100-meter hurdles, in 13.8 seconds. She beat her closest opponent by more than a second. Sophomore Asia Henry won yet another event. This time, it was in a tight 800-meter race as she finished in 2:07.49.
Although the women dominated this weekend, the men also put up solid performances. Men's head coach Perry Jenkins was particularly impressed with sophomore sprinter Miles Lewis. He took home first place in the 100-meter dash and second in the 200-meter with a time of 21.42 seconds - less than half a second off the Buffalo record. Jenkins was also impressed with senior Rob Golabek - who finished second in the men's shot put, only .12 meters off his own record - and junior Will Cole, who finished fourth in the 400-meter hurdles.
All in all, women's head coach Vicki Mitchell liked what she saw from her squad at the mid-season meet, particularly against some competition that the Bulls will see at the NCAA East Regional in Jacksonville, Fla.
"The key at this point in the season is to avoid injury," Mitchell said. "They aren't at the point in the season yet where we start to dial back the training, but they need to remain in peak physical shape."
With the Penn Relays looming in two weeks, the Bulls will first return home for their only home meet of the year this weekend. That event, the Upstate Challenge, will feature the best runners from local schools.
Buffalo will face its most stringent competition in the coming weeks in preparation for both the Mid-American Conference Championships and NCAA Regionals, but Jenkins has this team concentrating on the intense weeks ahead.
"The team has big competition every weekend from here on out," Jenkins said. "The key is to stay focused and apply what you have been doing in practice to a meet like this."
The Upstate Challenge will be an all-day event starting on Saturday, April 21 at UB Stadium.
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Photo: Paul Hokanson/UB Athletics
