The Bruins concluded the indoor track season this past Saturday with a strong showing by the women’s team in the 2013 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark.
The UCLA women’s track team concluded the meet with all representatives improving from their seeded rankings and clinching top five spots in each of their respective events. While the women participants all had strong closes to their indoor season, the two representatives from the men’s side both finished outside the top five. Juniors, pole vaulter Mike Woepse and heptathlete Marcus Nilsson, finished seventh and 14th, respectively, in their second time at the NCAA Championships.
“Our women’s team did a phenomenal job. On the men’s side it was me and Marcus Nilsson, and to be honest, we both underperformed. … It was a bit of a disappointment, but it was a good experience,” Woepse said. “Hopefully we can work on it and build on it for outdoors.”
Nilsson completed his heptathlon events tied at No. 14 on the leaderboard after placing 11th in last year’s championships. Meanwhile, Woepse finished in seventh place, an improvement over last year’s NCAA Championships, where he came in 14th. He was disappointed with how he closed the event though.
“It was pretty good, (but) I was hoping to do better. I had a pretty good chance of winning the thing. So to only come out there seventh was a disappointment,” Woepse said.
Though the men struggled, it was the Bruin women that shined in their final indoor competition of the year.
Sophomore high jumper Kylie Price started the competition for the Bruins with a 20 feet, 10 inch jump on day one. The result was a personal best and enough for her to place fourth.
Senior pole vaulter Allison Koressel started day two’s competition for UCLA by clearing an indoor personal best height, landing her in the fifth position in the event.
“We went into the competition, and I was running 14th. We were expecting me to do well, but fifth place really exceeded anything that I could’ve dreamed of, and I ended up getting two personal bests during the meet so that was really exciting,” Koressel said.
Sophomore hurdler Brea Buchanan ended day two of the competition for the UCLA women’s team with the 60-meter hurdles event. Buchanan, the No. 12 seed, was able to improve her rankings in the preliminaries, qualifying for the finals in fifth place. In the second day of competition, Buchanan ran a time of 8.16 seconds, becoming the second Bruin with a top-five finish in the day’s competition.
“I think I did really good, especially as a sophomore and making (it) this far. I came into the meet and I (got a personal best) and I stayed consistent in the prelims and the final,” Buchanan said.