Spearfish, South Dakota - The Cowgirls posted a strong effort on the opening day and positioned themselves well for second day success at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Indoor Track And Field Championships.
"This was a strong first day," said head coach
Bob DeVries. "We pushed two into the finals of the 60, 200 and 400 and long jump; had the top qualifiers in the 60 and 60H and had five athletes and a relay set season-best marks."
As coach Russell reminded everyone heading into Saturday's finals, "It's all about staying focused and making the competition beat you."
Patreece Clarke started it off in the day's first event. Clarke topped the field in the 60 hurdle prelims and will head to Saturday's final trying for her second RMAC title.
Clarke came back 45 minutes later to qualify for the final in the 60m sprint. Teammate
Ashley Barrett was the top qualifier in the 60m. Barrett's 7.43 moves her into the national top 12.
Barrett later qualified second in the 200m in a career best 24.31 (adjusted for track size), currently a top-20 national mark.
Kacian Powell (25.24) also qualified for the day two final.
"Ashley looked fiercely fast today. She is going to be tough to beat in the finals," commented DeVries.
Both
Cemore Donald and Powell made it through to the finals in the 400m. The Cowgirls came excruciatingly close to putting three into the final, but
Lucia Harrison came up just six one-hundreths of a second short.
"You can't stop a stopwatch in six-one hundredths of a second using the same finger - try it," said coach DeVries. "Lucia ran a career best time, but track can be cruel."
The only points of the day came in the long jump.
Rojrika Campbell (5th) and
Chisom Obioha (7th) each made the finals to put the Cowgirls on the scoreboard with six points.
"Chisom had a huge opening jump -- maybe the longest of the competition, but she was an inch over the board. She struggled a little on the runway after that and couldn't hit another big jump."
The Distance Medley Relay of
Emma Hurren,
Selena Fresquez, Harrison and
Josey French ran a season-best but couldn't crack the top eight in the distance strong RMAC.
"We raced the DMR for experience. Other than Lucia, everyone else was in their first RMAC meet."
Day two from Spearfish gets under way at 10:00 am and complete coverage can be found on the
RMAC Championship page.
