Last Saturday, the Boston University men’s and women’s track and field team opened their 2005-06 season, traveling to the Reggie Lewis Center at Northeastern University to participate in the 2005 Husky Winter Carnival Track and Field Meet. But, if you ask first-year coach Robyne Johnson, any success – and there was a good deal of it for BU – was a bonus.
“It’s very early in the season,” Johnson said, emphasizing that the early season is all about perfecting technique. “We’ll be concerned with performance after the break.”
Sophomore Tahari James and graduate student Nicki Hill led the way for the women’s team. James jumped 18 feet, 9.75 inches to win the long jump for the Terriers and helped the 4×400 relay team take a close second to Northeastern’s ‘A’ team. Hill took first in the high jump, completing a 5-foot, 8.75-inch leap.
“It was nice to see [them] start off well,” Johnson said, saying the same about sophomore pole vaulter Jennifer Schwartz, who took seventh with a 10-foot, 6-inch vault.
The pair of women’s 4×400 relay teams took second and third in their competition. Team ‘B’, comprised of freshman Katie Weider, senior Victoria Lopez, James and senior Kristen Sederholt, took second with a time of 3:55.15. Team ‘A’ – freshman Rebecca Mashburn, junior Melanie Piccolo, senior captain Erin Cadden and junior Apryl Holder – finished third, with a time of 4:01.68.
From Team ‘A’ alone, three Terriers placed in other events. Piccolo took eighth in the 200-meter dash and Cadden took fifth in the 55-meter hurdles. Mashburn finished well in two events, capturing fifth in the 400-meter dash and sixth in hurdles behind Cadden. Freshman Alexis Beaudet finished eighth in the 55-meter dash preliminaries and seventh in the finals.
“We accomplished our goals,” Johnson said.
The women’s strongest event as a team was the 500-meter dash, in which BU filled the third, fourth and fifth slots, taken by Sederholt, Lopez and Weider, respectively.
“We did well for our first meet,” Johnson said. “We wanted to see where we are so we can make adjustments to our workouts and change our techniques a little.”
On the men’s side, senior Phil Putis posted a personal-best to win the mile with a time of 4:13.98. Johnson said she was also happy with the performance of sophomore Ryan Ung, who ran a personal-best 7.84 to take second in the 55-meter hurdles. Senior captain Lucjan Zaborowski took third in the 500-meter dash.
“In some places, we just need to do one more little thing,” Johnson said. “We can get those things right in practice.”
The men finished strong in the 400-meter dash, with junior Matt Howard taking second at 49.75 and junior Barry Graham running to a fourth-place 50.12. Sophomore Nick Goodman, who usually runs the 800-meter race, won the 3,000-meter run with a time of 8:33.21, beating No. 2 Stephan Ramirez by over two seconds.
“By the conference meet, we will show what kind of team we are,” Johnson said.
The men and women will both participate in the Harvard Invitational next Saturday, Dec. 10 at Harvard University.