Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
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Falcons Finish Fifth at BGSU Challenege
January 17, 2009 | Women's Track and Field
Jan. 17, 2009
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University track and field team finish fifth out of nine teams at the BGSU Challenge. At their first home event the Falcons recorded eight top-five finishers. These performances would place BGSU above Mid-American Conference rivals University of Toledo and Ohio University.
"We competed well and saw what we did well and can improve." said head coach Cami Wells. "There were many bright spots with good performances across the board and this meet was a lot stronger than our usual first meets."
One of these bright spots was senior Whitney Hartman. Hartman would strike early for the Falcons with their only first place finish in the weight throw. She led the pack with an 18.14 meter toss. After missing practice all week due to the flu, Hartman was surprised with her performance.
Senior TaKarra Dunning would also place fourth in the weight throw matching her personal best throw of 13.54 meters. Dunning also surprised her team after finishing third in the shot-put without throwing in the finals. Dunning aggravated her strained hamstring while throwing in the preliminaries.
"It was bitter sweet [placing third while sitting out] because I knew I could have gotten second or first and scored more points for the team." said Dunning, "If I would have competed I would have done better."
Sophomore Brittani McNeal would round off the top victories for the Falcons in field events. McNeal placed jumped 5.47 meters in the long jump placing her third overall. She would jump .49 meters short of the leader Jasmine Cotton, University of Cincinnati.
In the running events red shirt sophomore Ashley Spates would compete in her first event since her injury last season. Spates would earn fourth place in the 400 meter dash running a time of 1:00.85. She would finish three seconds behind Eastern Michigan's Shade St. Louis, who would finish first.
"I think I did okay after taking a year off," said Spates, "and I'm definitely going to get better as the season goes on."
Two more runners would place in the top five for the Falcons. Junior Carly Wells would score big placing third in the mile race with a time of 5:09.24. Fellow distance runner, senior Kara Butler, would place fourth in the 3,000 meter run with a time of 5:09.24.
BGSU would also do well in the 4x400 meter relay race. The Falcon "A" 4x400 team would place fifth with a time of 4:06.65. They would place behind three MAC Schools; Eastern Michigan (2), Ball State (3) and Miami (4); and the winner of the race University Cincinnati.
"We'll deal with different placements when we get to the big meets but for right now we are looking at where we want to be by the end of the season." said Wells, "I think that after getting back to school and having a hard week at practice, we competed well."
At the end of the meet, the University of Cincinnati would be the victor with a score of 157 points. Two MAC schools would complete the top-three positions with the University of Miami placing second earning 121 points and Ball State University totaling 84.50 points. The rest of the competing MAC schools would complete the core of the rankings with Eastern Michigan University (4/76 points), BGSU (5/61 points), Ohio University (6/43 points) and the University of Toledo (7/40.50 points). Oakland University would finish eighth with 27 points and IPFW would finish ninth 13 points.
