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Bowling Green State University Athletics
A School Record and a Monstrous PR Lead Falcons
February 10, 2007 | Women's Track and Field
Feb. 10, 2007
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - In front of the home crowd at Perry Field House Saturday, four Falcons paced their way to claim individual All-Ohio Champion titles as well as one relay. The Falcons finished third behind Miami (140 pts) and Cincinnati (130 pts) but beat other MAC rivals including Ohio University and Toledo.
Perhaps one of the biggest feats of the day was Takarra Dunning in the shot put. In her final throw of the day, Dunning threw a monstrous toss of 49-10.50, more than three and a half feet farther than her previous personal best in the event. She beat the second place finisher by more than three feet.
"It's exciting to see Takarra get that mark on her last throw of the competition," said head coach Cami Wells. "She's not too far off provisionally (15.40-meters) and from what I can tell right now it moves her into third going into the meet depending on the outcome of some of this weekends meets. She's had a few problems with her back this season so it's great to see her come back strong from that."
Another huge performance by the Falcons was Jessica White's performance in the 60-meter dash. She finished second behind Miami's Lashonda Davis but broke her own school record. She finished the dash in a time of 7.51 seconds, .02 seconds faster than her previous school record she set last indoor season. She was also the All-Ohio Champion in the 200-meter dash, running a season best time of 24.85 seconds, only .02 seconds slower than her personal best in the event.
"She broke the school record and ran a very strong race," said Wells. "She's got some good competition in Lashonda Davis of Miami so it's always a good race when she gets to run against her. She certainly has top-MAC caliber. She ran a great 200-meter race. She's stacking up really well to run great races at conference. She's very consistent for us."
Jamie Roflow was the third Falcon who won an All-Ohio title today. She won the women's mile in a time of 5:00.18 just .22 seconds off her personal best. She continued her win streak to 4-0 this season, 5-0 including the distance medley relay she was apart of Friday night.
"Jamie has run great for us all season. She's been consistent and gone undefeated throughout," said Wells.
Nicole Standback was second going into the 60-meter hurdle finals and ran the final race in a time of 8.77 seconds edging out her closest competitor by .02 seconds.
"I was proud of her. She was very composed during her race and was able to come back and win in the finals. She's ready to have a big breakthrough in the hurdles."
While competing at Findlay in day one of the All-Ohio Championships, the Falcons literally ran away with the victory in the Distance Medley Relay beating their nearest competitor by more than 10 seconds. The team of Kim Settle, Danielle Thornton, Yemoja Marotta and Roflow ran a time of 12:03.85, the fastest time in the event since 2001 when the team of Joy Echler, Christine Thompson, JoVonne Houpe and Anna Schweiterman, running 11:58.66 finished third at that year's MAC Championships.
"They really ran a strong race," said Wells. "This is the first time we've been able to run a DMR all season. Kim Settle lead off in first place. Danielle and Yemoja were able to keep us within striking distance and then Jamie put us back into first and brought us in for the win."
Other Falcons showed tremendous improvement at today's meeting. Settle set a best time in the mile run of 5:08.80, over three seconds faster than last week. Marotta (59.60) and Ashley Spates (1:00.43) went fifth and seventh, respectively in the 400-meters. Angie Raizis (2:22.31) and Thornton (2:22.33) went seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 800-meters. Besides White in the 200-meters, Crystal Burage finished eighth with a time of 26.42. In the 3,000-meters it was Kara Butler (fifth, 10:31.04) and Andrea Pereira de Almeida (eighth, 10:35.62) leading the way. The 4x400-meter relay of Spates, Hillary Hewit, Thornton, and Marotta finished fourth with a time of 4:01.14. Erica Wilson jumped a PR in the triple-jump (38-06.00), finishing third. She also tied for seventh in the high jump (5-03.00). Dunning had teammate Lauren Bryant backing her up, finishing fifth in the weight throw (53-09.75, PR) and sixth in the shot (42-04.00).
"Erica had a huge personal best today and I am proud of her," said Wells. "I am proud of them all. They have been working on the little things that are going to help them in the end. We're trying to stay as healthy as we can at the conference championships. We have some ladies who are certainly capable of a top three performance. We hope that our strength at the top will help us get us where we want to be as a team at the end. We will have some young athletes that will be running the meet for their first time. It was certainly hard to loose Carly (Bates) and Paris (Bussey) for the rest of the season, as they are two strong competitors for the team. The team has been fighting through and has kept positive and showed that for us today."
The Falcons will take the next two weeks to prepare for the MAC Championships set to take place in Akron on Feb. 23-24.
