Kelsey Johnson Posts Regional Qualifying Time
4/17/2009 12:00:00 AM
April 17, 2009
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The Alabama women's track and field team finished day one of their weekend on Friday as they are competing with split squads at the Volunteer Classic at Tom Black Track at LaPorte Stadium and the War Eagle Invitational at Hutsell-Rosen Track in Auburn, Ala.
In Knoxville, the Crimson Tide had three ladies set personal bests in the hammer throw led by Angelica Howard continuing to improve on her mark with a heave of 197-5 1/4 in route to winning the event. Jasmine Williams also threw a 10-foot personal best in the event with a mark of 158-11 3/4 to finish second. Amethyst Holmes set a personal best with a throw of 152-0 3/4 to finish fifth overall.
In the shot put, Christina Octavien set a personal best with her throw of 43-7 3/4 to finish fourth overall.
"I think the throwers are starting to come around," head coach Sandy Fowler said. "The number one thing that they're starting to realize is they need to practice how they compete. We need to practice just how we compete so it's never a problem in competition. I'll go ahead and say it, Angelica Howard has a lot more in her tank than 60 meters. She had a bigger throw in the warm ups. I think she'll be a force to reckon with at the SEC Championships."
Lynda Cooper and Katherine Strickland finished 2-3 in the pole vault with clearances of 12-7 1/2 and 11-9 3/4, respectively.
In the 3,000 meter run, Megan Williams ran a 50 second personal best from last season finishing with a time of 10:41.92. Williams finished fifth in the race.
"Megan knows she has a lot more, she got a little scared before the race before the race because her hamstring started out tight but she made up a lot of ground in the second half of the race," Fowler said.
The collegiate portion of the Volunteer Track Classic will commence Saturday at 12:00 p.m. with the women's 100m hurdles.
In Auburn, true freshman Kelsey Johnson posted Alabama's first-ever regional qualifying mark in the 1,500 meters with a time of 4:27.12. The NCAA went to a regional qualifying format for the NCAA Championships in 2003. Johnson's time was a personal best by over 10 seconds.
"I think it's huge because she's so young so that experience will help her future at Alabama," Fowler said. "It's good for her too because she did it fairly early in the season and now she's just going to move forward. I'm proud of her she did great."
Field events at Auburn will begin Saturday at 10:30 a.m. with the running events set to commence at 12:00 p.m.
Players Mentioned
