April 7, 2015
By: Kirk Elias
A beautiful Los Angeles weekend and a sense of track history at the iconic Drake Stadium on UCLA's campus energized a young Nevada Wolf Pack track & field team to some great performances. The journey to UCLA for the two-day Legends Invitational resulted in two wins, two school records, and a view of what this young team can become as the entire squad was unveiled for the first time this outdoor season.
Saturday afternoon,
Katherine Surin, who only has two years of track experience, grabbed the win in the 400m by executing a disciplined race like a seasoned veteran. Surin allowed Mountain West champion Monay Meggs of UNLV to surge to a large lead by 200 meters before slowly starting to reel her in on the second turn. Coming into the final straight, the long striding freshman had shaved Meggs' lead to three meters. Gobbling up ground, Surin drove by Meggs with 50 meters left to win comfortably in 54.59 to Meggs 54.90. The time is the second-best in Wolf Pack history and a major PR for the yearling from St. Terome, Quebec.
On a warm Friday evening,
Emily Myers stormed to a massive 54 second win in the 5000m, taking down Amanda Moreno's five year-old school record along the way. Opening with a 75 second first 400, Myers had already distanced herself from the chase pack by the end of the lap. Myers, who had tuned up with a very surprising 4:28.41 1500m (which was a whopping PR) two weeks before, just kept widening her lead. By half way through the race, the public address announcer described the junior from Cabot, Ark. as pile driving the competition. A lap later he started calling her Emily `Hot Rod' Myers, which only seemed to fire her competitive nature. Drilling through the race with a series of clockwork 80 second laps, Myers closed with another 75 to PR by 13 seconds in 16:30.69, breaking the school record by five seconds.
Vaulting in front of a group of Pole Vault aficionados at the lovely, and recently renovated Drake Stadium, seemed to propel
Alison Powers to new heights. The junior from Las Vegas appeared to relish the Hollywood spotlight as she broke her PR twice and shattered Jenny Ashcroft's school record, which had stood since 2002. Powers, who had bumped her outdoor PR up to 12'7.5"/3.88m at Sacramento State's Hornet Invite two weeks before, was clean through 12'7"/3.86m. With her second attempt clearance at 13'1"/4.01m, Powers was amongst four who were still in the competition. With another second attempt clearance, Powers easily cleared 13'5.75"/4.11m to take second overall and claim rights to the Nevada school record.
The 3000m Steeplechase saw Nevada score the most points in a single event with
Erika Root's 11:05.24 PR in second,
Anna Preciado's 11:09.20 PR in third, and
Laura Palacios' 11:38.30 PR in fifth. Root and Preciado showed excellent competitiveness as they ran down and soundly defeated an athlete in the second half of the race, who had beaten them by over 10 seconds three weeks before.
The Javelin was another big point event for the Wolf Pack as Katia Coquis (136'3"/41.52m) took second,
Alyssa Zunino (136'1"/41.48m) third, and
Savanna Haverfield (126'/38.40m) eighth.
Freshman
Dezirae Pennington took her own turn to shine as she bounded down the blue Mondo surface to a PR 38'7"/11.76m in the Triple Jump which took second.
Nathalie Cartan finished seventh with a jump of 35'4.5"/10.78m.
The team will have a weekend off before heading to Southern California again for two, and perhaps three meets, the prestigious Mt. SAC Relays and Azusa Pacific's Bryan Clay Invitational, and perhaps also the Long Beach Invitational, which is hosted by Long Beach State.
