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Frogs The TCU track and field team might be known for its sprinters, but at the second annual TCU Invitational Saturday, seniors Jason Howard, Darvis Patton and junior Abdul Rasheed showed it also has talented jumpers. In what head coach Monte Stratton called the biggest surprise of the day, Howard edged Rasheed in the triple jump. Howard’s winning jump of 16.30 meters earned him an automatic spot in the NCAA Championships. Rasheed’s leap of 16.29 meters was also his best jump of the season, but it was still a centimeter short of an automatic bid to nationals. Howard said he enjoyed the competition with his teammate.
“My main competition was Abdul today,” Howard said. “He’s a talented young man, he does all the jumps and he’s just a raw talent. We’ve been battling back and fourth all season, but I got the best of him today.” The long jump competition featured Patton, who has the longest wind-legal jump of the season. Patton finished second with a jump of 8.10 meters, and Howard was third with a leap of 7.77 meters. Besides finishing second in the long jump, Patton took home first place in the 200-meter dash and the 4x100-meter relay along with Lindel Frater, senior Kim Collins and junior Steve Slowly. TCU’s “B” team also fared well, taking second in the relay and earning a provisional qualifying time for nationals. While only one relay team can represent TCU at nationals, “B” squad member junior Mario Ponds said that didn’t discourage him. “We both qualified, so it still looks good on paper,” Ponds said. Although Collins didn’t run in the 100-meter dash, TCU was still well represented.
Former TCU track sprinter Ricardo Williams, who graduated last year,
ran independently and finished second in the 100. “This year, the meet has improved a whole lot,” Williams said. “There are more and better teams here than there were last year, and TCU still has the best athletes.” Even though junior Eliud Njubi ran a provisional qualifying time, and he set the meet record in the 1500, he said that he still wasn’t satisfied with his performance. “I need the competition to be able to get the automatic qualification,” said Njubi, who spent the entire race in front of the pack. “The wind also slowed me down and kept me from qualifying,” he said. On the women’s side, sophomore Monica Twum finished first in every event in which she competed. Twum finished with provisional times in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes. Sophomore Carla Poole won the 400-meter hurdles for the second consecutive year at the invitational. Her time of 1:01.55 broke her own record set last year. Poole said the home crowd put extra pressure on her to perform. “I think the crowd helped out,” she said. “It’s harder to run the hurdles with all the wind, but my mama brought family, so I had to do my best.” And as the team takes to the road for the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Stratton said that he was pleased with his team’s overall effort at the meet. “We made some seasonal bests, and there were no injuries that I’m aware of,” Stratton said. “Now we can focus on going head to head with some of the top teams in the nation next week.”
Sam Eaton |
