An eventful spring break for track team

There wasn’t much break in spring break for the track team. Portions of the team participated… There wasn’t much break in spring break for the track team. Portions of the team participated in three meets spread out all over the country during a long week.

Some of the men and women rebounded well from average Big East Championship performances, especially sophomore Janine Jones, who achieved All-American status at the national championships and senior Beth Rocks who won a regional title.

Last Chance Meet (Feb. 28)

A select few Panthers traveled down to Gainesville, Fla., for the Last Chance Meet hoping to qualify for the national championships, but not much quality competition followed them there.

Even though freshman Kim Lyles finished second in the 200 meters with a time of 24.57 seconds, she didn’t get the push she needed from the slow field to get a qualification.

It was the same for men’s 800 runners Jeryl Wilborn and Jesse Chalfant. Freshman Wilborn and junior Chalfant finished ninth and 10th respectively, in a race that produced only one provisional qualifier.

“People we thought were going to attend the meet didn’t attend,” head coach Steve Lewis said. “They went down to Florida and just didn’t run well.”

ECAC/IC4A Championships (March 1)

The women’s team proved once again that what you see at the Big East Championships isn’t necessarily what you’ll get at the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship, which was held in the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

After finishing seventh at the Big East meet in Syracuse, N.Y., the women moved up to take third in Boston against a much bigger field.

The scenario was close to that of last year, when the women finished runner-up to Georgetown in Syracuse, only to come back and win the whole thing in Boston.

Though the field expanded, there were plenty of familiar faces at the top with Big East teams taking the top five spots. Seton Hall was crowned champ, but Pitt got some revenge on some teams that passed them in the previous meet.

Rocks silenced some past demons with her personal best performance in the 1,000. Rocks, an automatic national qualifier in the 800, won the race with a time of two minutes, 47.64 seconds.

“I wasn’t a Big East champion, and I took second in the 1,000 [at ECAC’s] last year,” said Rocks, who finished third at the same distance during the conference meet.

“I just wanted to win the race.”

Freshman teammate Maureen McCandless used a personal best performance to make it to the finals of the race and ended up scoring a point for Pitt by taking eighth place overall (2:57.09).

In her absolute last chance to assure a spot in the national meet, Janine Jones did her best with the pressure on and got an automatic seeding by finishing runner-up in the 800 with a time of 2:06.16. The race was stacked, with seven of the eight athletes running qualifying times.

Senior Nicole Kelly has contributed a lot of team points in past championship meets, and she stayed true to form in Boston.

Kelly finished second in the pentathlon with 3,558 points. Freshman Tamara McGill was right up there too, taking sixth with a score of 3,405.

Senior Patrick Harding had some time to mull over his loss at the Big East title in the shot put, an event in which he was the defending champion, before stepping into the circle at the Inter-Collegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America Championship.

“Somebody told me that people said, ‘Patrick isn’t human. He can’t be beaten,'” said Harding, a runner-up at Big East this year.

“But at Big East, somebody beat me, and [the competition] could smell blood.”

Harding didn’t look vulnerable for long, though. A toss of 17.11 meters wrapped up second place for him.

Senior Maurice Patterson stepped up again for the men in the 200, taking eighth (21.88).

Junior Alvin Jones finished sixth in a strong pentathlon field.

Others scoring points for the women included Amanda Walker in the shot (fifth), Nicole Vann in the 60 hurdles (eighth), Lyles in the 60 dash and 200 (eighth and fifth) and Trenace Elliot in the 400 (eighth).

The 1,600 relay of Jones, Elizabeth Bayne, Elliot and Mera Belisle took third with the fastest time of the season (3:40.18).

Wilborn and Chalfant scored for the men with seventh and eighth places in the 800.

NCAA Championships (March 8-9)

Jones and Rocks both made it to Fayetteville, Ark., for the NCAA Championships in the 800, but neither did as well as they had hoped.

Jones finished 12th with a time of 2:07.65 and Rocks finished 18th with a time of 2:09.34, and neither made it to the finals.

“Three weeks of real competitive races took its toll,” said Lewis, who thought his runners looked a little flat.

“It wasn’t a matter of effort. It just didn’t happen. But Janine still made All-American.”

Jones finished among the top eight American citizens to achieve All-American status.

“Arkansas was rough,” Rocks said. “But Janine had a really good race, ran smart.”