Tuesday, 6/24/97 Lady Tigers edge out Bruins to a third place
finish W. TRACK: A disappointed UCLA garners a handful of
individual titles in NCAA championships
By Donald Morrison Daily Bruin Staff History repeated itself at
the 1997 NCAA Track and Field Championships, held in Bloomington,
Indiana. The Louisiana State Tigers won their 11th straight women’s
track championship, upending UCLA’s bid to win its first title
since 1983. LSU captured the national title with 63 points, edging
the second place Texas Longhorns, who had 62 points. The Bruins
finished third, with 56 points. UCLA sent 11 athletes to the NCAA
meet and looked poised to win its fourth national title during the
1996-97 school year. UCLA led early in the four-day meet, held June
4-7, and after three days had 46 points. Texas was second with 21
points and LSU was third with 20 points. UCLA received fine results
from its athletes. Freshman Seilala Sua captured the NCAA discus
title with a throw of 200 feet, 6 inches. Suzy Powell, the Pac-10
discus champion, finished second with a mark of 198-7. Nada Kawar
finished sixth for the Bruins with a throw of 177-3. Sua capped off
her great meet by placing third in the shot put with a heave of
55-8 1/4. Kawar placed fourth in the same event with a throw of
55-4 1/4. Powell won her first NCAA title by winning the javelin
throw, tying her personal best of 179-2. The biggest blow to UCLA’s
national-title hopes came on the first day of competition when
hurdler Joanna Hayes hyper-extended her right knee during a
400-meter hurdle qualifying race. Hayes’ injury forced her to
withdraw from the 100-meter hurdle competition, an event in which
she was ranked eighth before the meet Hayes did come through for
the Bruins when she ran the 400-meter hurdle final. She was in
ninth place over the last hurdle and managed to outkick two runners
to place seventh and score two points for the Bruins. She also
competed in the final of the 4×100-meter relay along with Bisa
Grant, Darlene Malco and Andrea Anderson. The Bruins, who had Hayes
run the anchor leg because of her knee, finished sixth with a time
of 44.76. Rachelle Noble scored two points for the Bruins when she
threw the hammer 188-4 to place seventh. Amy Acuff, looking to win
her third NCAA outdoor title and sixth overall NCAA title in the
high jump, did not fare as well as she would have liked. Acuff
jumped 6-2 3/4 to finish second behind Kajsa Bergqvist of Southern
Methodist University. Bergqvist jumped 6-4 to win the competition
in the rain. Acuff tried one attempt at 6-4 and missed, then failed
to clear her next two attempts at 6-5. "I was having flashbacks out
there to the Olympic Games when it started raining right after I
cleared 6-1 and the same thing happened here with the slick, hard
surface," Acuff said. "I was really terrified to accelerate in the
rain but I gave it my best. It just wasn’t good enough today."
Freshman Deana Simmons just missed scoring for UCLA in the triple
jump. Aided by the wind, Simmons placed ninth in the nation at the
meet with a mark of 43-1 3/4. Senior Katherina Kechris, competing
in the NCAA Championships for the first time in her career,
qualified for the final in the 3000-meter run and placed 12th with
a time of 9:55.13, 32 seconds off her personal best. Malco and
Anderson, the two top finishers at the Pac-10 Championships for 400
meters, failed to qualify for the final. Grant did not qualify for
the 100- meter hurdle final. The LSU sprint corps took over on the
last day of competition and capitalized on UCLA’s near-misses in
the scoring department. The Lady Tigers scored 43 points on the
last day of competition. Astia Walker won the 100-meter hurdles in
a time of 12.85 seconds, contributing 10 points to the Tigers’
winning cause. Peta-Gaye Dowdie and Kwajahalein Butler finished
third and fourth respectively in the 100-meter dash to give LSU 11
points. Walker and Dowdie finished second and fifth, respectively
in the 200 meter dash for 12 points, and LaTarsha Stroman won the
400 meters for LSU. UCLA’s third place finish in the nation
bettered upon their ninth place performance at the 1996 NCAA
Championships. The Bruins finished their season with a perfect
dual-meet record of 10-0 and won their eighth Pac-10 title in 11
years. UCLA will be expected to contend for a national and Pac-10
title next year as only four Bruins graduated, Acuff, Malco,
Kechris and Zoe Shaw. Acuff graduated having received First-Team
GTE Academic All-America Team honors, with a 3.32 GPA in Biology.
Coach Jeanette Bolden was named the 1997 Pac-10 Coach of the Year.
This is Bolden’s third Pac-10 Coach of the Year Award in her four
years of coaching. ASUCLA Photography Freshman Seilala Sua is the
1997 Discus National Champion. Previous Daily Bruin Story Bolden
heads into next year with visionof championship, June 6, 1996
Previous Daily Bruin Stories: Bolden heads into next year with
visionof championship