When it counted most, senior Jonathan Williams came through for
the Bruins.
With UCLA locked in a tight battle with Oregon for the
men’s Pac-10 team championship, Williams kept the Bruins
close with a pair of lifetime bests in both hurdle races.
“I was really surprised,” Williams said of his
performance.
“But I always knew I could put together these PRs, it was
just a matter of putting the race together.”
First Williams posted a lifetime best 13.81 seconds in the
110-meter hurdles to capture second place. But it was in the 400
meter hurdles where Williams made his biggest impact, finishing
second to teammate Brandon Johnson in a personal-best 49.67
seconds, a significant improvement from his previous season best of
51.04 seconds.
“By the time the 400 hurdles came around, I knew we had to
get big points to keep us in the team title race,” Williams
said.
“I knew we had to finish 1-2 and we just worked our butts
off to get it.”
Even though the Bruins still fell well short of first-place by
Oregon’s 152 points, Williams still had something to
celebrate.
In racking up 16 points for the Bruins, he posted the tenth best
time in school history in the high hurdles and the sixth-best time
in the intermediate hurdles.
That makes him the first member of the UCLA men’s team
ever to be listed in the top ten in both events, UCLA sprints coach
Tony Veney said.
“Jonathan had quite a day,” Veney said. “I
knew he would perform well as long as he didn’t focus on
time.”
With the feat, Williams will now carry a great deal of momentum
heading into the West Regional Championships which will be held at
Oregon later this month.
“This meet is a really good springboard for us,”
Veney said.
“It helps these young guys realize that we just got our
nose bloodied today, and we got to be ready to come back in a
couple of weeks.”
Even with his amazing performance, Williams believes he can
bring his times down even more.
“The sky’s the limit,” Williams said.
“I want to run 48 and 13.5. I’m just trying to get
the best possible times before I leave here.”