For senior Ingrid Kantola, her final Pac-10 meet also turned out to be her best.
Kantola won the Pac-10 pole vault title in Tempe, Ariz., this weekend with a clearance of 14 feet, 1.75 inches.
“Ingrid is a fierce competitor,” coach Jeanette Bolden said. “She has had some small issues during the season, but when you are so close over and over again, you are bound to have a huge breakthrough. She really did fantastic.”
Not only was Kantola the only female competitor to vault over 14 feet, but her height was good enough to earn her the No. 3 spot on UCLA’s all-time list, the No. 3 mark in the NCAAs this season, a Sun Angel Stadium record and a lifetime best.
“I came into the meet hoping to get top five or top three,” Kantola said. “I hadn’t thought about winning the title a whole lot. I knew I had a challenge (to win it), but it’s never out of reach; it’s always a possibility and always a dream.”
While Kantola was able to come out on top, she was the only Bruin to do so in the Pac-10 Championships. As a whole, the team finished fifth with 80 points, while Arizona State University dominated the competition with a total of 186.5 points, almost 70 more than the second-place team.
“We can’t do anything about the depth of another team,” Bolden said. “We can just do the best job we can, and the best thing we can do is make it to the finals healthy. So I am happy, and I feel good going into regionals.”
The Bruins were still able to put up strong performances that allowed them to jump from seventh to fifth on the second day.
Besides Kantola, junior Katy Viuf and freshman Tori Pena scored in the pole vault, with Viuf finishing in a tie for fourth place and Pena finishing in seventh place. Viuf’s lifetime best vault moves her onto the UCLA all-time list in seventh and ninth in the NCAAs list this season.
Redshirt senior Renee Williams also added points to UCLA’s total in the long jump and the triple jump. She finished second in the triple jump and sixth in the long jump.
Senior Keneisha Creary was able to score for the Bruins two weekends in a row. After finishing seventh in the heptathlon last week, she returned to Tempe to place fourth in the high jump.
Sophomore Krishna Curry placed fourth in the 800 meter with a lifetime best time of 2 minutes, 5.46 seconds, a mark that moved her into sixth on the all-time school list.
“It’s a really elite group of runners; there are a lot of fast people that have come through UCLA,” Curry said. “It makes me feel good.”
Also scoring for the Bruins was junior Krystin Lacy, who finished fourth in the 100m and sixth in the 200m, while senior Jolanda Diego finished fifth in the 100m and third in the 200m. In the 100m hurdles, freshman Lindsay Rowe finished fourth and senior DeShanta Harris finished fifth. Senior Merice Wisdom also added points for the team with a fifth-place finish in the 400m.
Bolden was pleased with the performances of the weekend and said the team is “healthy and building momentum,” two things that will be very important going into regionals and NCAA Championships.