As the second week of March commences, much of the collegiate sports world is preoccupied with March Madness and the start of the men’s basketball conference tournaments.
However, for five athletes on the UCLA track and field team, the focus is fixed on their final indoor meet of the season – the NCAA Indoor Championship in Fayetteville, Ark. on Saturday. These five Bruins each earned a spot in NCAAs after finishing the indoor season ranked in the top 16 nationally in their events.
Three redshirt seniors – heptathlete Marcus Nilsson, weight thrower Ida Storm and pole vaulter Mike Woepse – will each be making a fourth trip to this competition. The other two Bruins in this meet – redshirt junior Nicholas Scarvelis and redshirt sophomore Torie Owers – will compete in the male and female shot put competitions respectively.
At her last meet, Storm broke the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation record in the weight throw. Although she experienced considerable success, she still remains focused on the national meet this weekend.
“MPSF was a good start, but I know I have a lot more in me,” Storm said. “It was fun to break a record but I’m trying to develop that into something much better and further.”
Storm enters NCAA indoors with the No. 2 mark in the nation in 2015, behind Missouri’s Kearsten Peoples. For Storm to surpass Peoples’ current high score of 74-11.25, she will need to add over a full foot to her current personal best of 73-5.75.
“I want to win and that would require a personal best, so definitely trying to win and achieve a new PR,” Storm said.
Storm’s teammate and fellow thrower Owers is looking to have a strong performance this weekend in the shot put. Owers strained her groin prior to the MPSF indoor conference championship, hindering her throws as she placed fifth at the meet.
“It was not my best meet. Since I strained my groin I wasn’t able to throw the week before,” Owers said. “I think that I’ve been lucky to get better, and it’s just been much more building up now.”
Owers also mentioned how adjusting to adding the rotation, also known as the spin technique, to her throw over the course of the last season has been a challenge.
“A year sounds like a long time, but I also hadn’t competed with it prior to this indoor season,” Owers said. “So I’m relatively new to it and trying to just keep the rhythm I have in competition.”
Woepse heads into the NCAA indoors with the No. 5 mark in the country. Throughout the course of the season, he has had his sights set on breaking the school record. With NCAA indoors also representing the last meet of Woepse’s UCLA career, the redshirt senior has not forgotten what his goals are.
“There’s no other chance after this, so I’m definitely going for that,” Woepse said. “If there’s a place to do it, it’s this place, and if there’s a meet to do it in, it’s the national championship.”