Beau Walker Earns All-America Honors
3/10/2006 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field, Cross Country
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Alabama senior hurdler Beau Walker earned indoor All-America honors for the second straight year, finishing fourth in the 60-meter hurdles for the second year in a row at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville. The Tide star broke her own school record holder in the hurdles with an 8.01 in the finals.
"It's not easy earning All-America," Walker said. "I'll take it when I can get it. Growing up my mom always told me to leave my mark so that's what I was trying to do."
The Aurora, Colo. Native advanced the finals by finishing third in her heat with a time of 8.15, the seventh fastest time of the preliminaries to advance to the finals. She also battled a hamstring injury all week to turn in her performance.
"It says a lot about her to overcome her injury," Alabama head coach Sandy Fowler said. "I think in her heat race she realized that she could run with her injury and that she was tough enough to run. I'm proud of her. She's tough and she did really well."
The Tide's other star sprinter, Tahesia Harrigan, suffered from the effects of injury as well. She ran 7.24 to take third in her heat of the 60-meter dash but missed qualifying for the finals by .01.
"I felt that she did the best that she could today," Fowler said. "She ran hard and out to a fast start. She just couldn't turn over. It was hard for her because she is battling both a quad and a groin and I'm a firm believer that you have to have all the pieces together to run your best race."
Fowler was pleased with the Tide's two newcomers to the NCAA Championships. Freshman Chealsea Taylor ran 23.88 in her first NCAA event, the 200m dash, 14th best in the preliminaries and Kou Luogon finished 12th in the preliminaries of the 400m. Lougon was third in her heat with a time of 53.63.
"For Chealsea to run her third best time of the season at nationals with the caliber of competition she faced says a lot about her," Fowler said. "She is just going to get better and better. This was also a learning experience for Kou. She'll learn about being able to using the bank at banked tracks to her advantage."
Miruna Mataoanu finished 17th in the high jump.
"I think Miruna just needs to be patient," Fowler said. "She's had a lot of changes this past year in having to learn from two coaches. When she starts to put everything together, which will be during the outdoor season, she is going to be great."
The Tide will continue competition at the 2006 NCAA Indoor Championships tomorrow with one individual event and one relay. Aymara Albury will compete in the shot put on Saturday afternoon.
"Aymara is definitely ready for tomorrow," Fowler said. "I would love to see her earn All-America. She's been on the cusp of that for a long time."
Alabama will wrap-up competition in the championships on Saturday night with the 4x400m relay.
