Track turns in a good performance in final meet

The women’s indoor track and field team took home first place in the Eastern College… The women’s indoor track and field team took home first place in the Eastern College Athletic Conference IC4A Championships over the weekend of March 6 and 7, while the men’s team tied for 36th place.

The women’s field at the Boston University-hosted event featured 45 teams that scored points. Pitt finished with 62 points — 11 ahead of second-place West Virginia — by recording 13 top-eight finishes.

“I expected to win on the women’s side,” head coach Alonzo Webb said. “I thought if we had a pretty decent meet, we’d at least have a chance to win.”

Junior Kimberly Lyles led the way for the Panthers by finishing first in the 200-meter dash and third in the 60-meter, with times of 23.92 and 7.58, respectively.

Those two events also featured a second strong performance by a Pitt athlete. In the 60-meter, junior Lamoy Stephens took eighth place with a time of 7.71, and in the 200-meter, senior Trenace Elliot captured seventh place with a time of 24.97. Elliot also took home a fifth-place finish in the 400-meter run, clocking in at 55.81.

Lyles, Stephens, Elliot and senior Elizabeth Bayne took home a fourth-place finish in the 4×400-meter relay with a time of 3:45.33. The 4×800-meter relay team of senior Janine Jones, freshman Krystal Epps and juniors Maureen McCandless and Keisha Perry also finished well by placing seventh with a time of 9:07.09.

McCandless also scored a second-place finish in the 3000-meter run with a time of 9:24.76.

Freshman Fatmata Fofonah came in fifth in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.62, and junior Tamara McGill placed seventh in the pentathlon by scoring 3,414 points.

The Panthers also had a number of strong finishes in the field events. Junior Amanda Walker placed second in the shot put with a throw of 15.15 meters and fifth in the weight throw with a distance of 18.20 meters. And sophomore Marissa Dudek’s 3.85 meters in the pole vault gave her a third-place finish and a personal best.

“Actually, we didn’t have a very good meet for us. Our performances weren’t really up to par,” Webb said. “I think it was just a letdown from the Big East meet. It was good to see, in a way, that we didn’t perform our best, but we were still able to win with some really good teams there.”

The men’s field was comprised of 53 colleges that managed to score at least one point. Pitt finished with only six points — 54 behind first-place Manhattan.

“I wasn’t disappointed [with the results] because I knew we weren’t really set on the men’s side,” Webb said. “I just wanted them to go in there and compete hard and do the best they could under the circumstances.”

Only two athletes scored points for the Panthers. Freshman Justin Clickett placed fifth in the shot put, with a distance of 17.18 meters, and junior Jeryl Wilborn came in seventh place in the 800-meter run, with a time of 1:51.97.

The ECAC/IC4A Championships was the last indoor meet of the season for the Panthers because no one on either team succeeded in qualifying for the NCAA Championships.

According to Webb, a few members of the women’s team came very close to making it into the Championships. Lyles missed by two hundredths of a seconds in the 200-meter, McCandless missed by about one second in the 3000-meter, McGill missed by less than 50 points in the pentathlon, and the 4×400-meter relay team came up less than a second short.

“I think it’s motivation for them to be that close and not make it,” said Webb. “You are always disappointed when your kids don’t make it in, but we are still a young team, and when we go through experiences like that, I think it only helps the team get stronger and grow and learn.”

The first outdoor event of the season begins on March 26 at the Raleigh Relays.