It has been two weeks since the No. 14 UCLA women’s track and field team competed as a full squad. They make their collective return this weekend in full force.
The Bruins will travel to Seattle for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships held tomorrow and Saturday at Dempsey Indoor Stadium.
Despite a conference title on the line, the focus for the team will be on improving their own marks to make sure they qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships that takes place March 13 and 14.
“This weekend I’m looking to see how many people I can qualify for Nationals,” coach Jeanette Bolden said. “I’m trying to see how good we are to try to get a beat of how we’re going to be outdoors.”
So far this season, only a few athletes have hit the qualifying marks. Senior Rhonda Watkins has the only automatic qualifier for UCLA in the long jump. Junior jumper Danielle Watson, junior pole vaulter Katy Viuf and the 4×400 relay team all have provisional marks and are looking to better those to guarantee a spot at Nationals.
“We are just focusing on marks for Nationals,” Bolden said. “We are working on getting the relay team faster and try to move people up the descending order list like Danielle.”
The Bruins will be competing in their primary events at this meet, something most of the athletes have not done in 2009.
Watkins will make her debut in the high jump and senior Nicole Leach will run the 400m for the first time this season. Junior Krishna Curry, who is .07 seconds away from the provisional qualifier will take another crack at it in the 800m. Senior Krystin Lacy will double up in the 60m and 200m and also run the relay.
“My goals are to get the automatic qualifiers for Nationals,” Lacy said. “An automatic time for relay would be good and to lower our time.”
Freshman Ryann Krais, one of the top recruits from last year’s class, will compete in the indoor pentathlon for the first time this year.
“I’m getting the opportunity to do a pentathlon which I haven’t been able to do all year so I’m pretty excited about that,” Krais said. “It’s my favorite thing to do indoors so hopefully it turns out well.”
Also competing for the Bruins will be a solid group of throwers, a duo of vaulters, and the distance squad.
The competition will be very tough as the MPSF boasts some of the stronger teams in the nation. No. 2 Oregon, No. 7 Arizona State and No. 10 Arizona are three of the five nationally ranked MPSF teams.
For UCLA, the biggest meet of their season so far will be a gauge to see where they are compared to other teams. The athletes feel they are up to the challenge by coming out in their top events.
“I think it’s pretty cool a lot of girls are going and a lot of girls are doing their best events,” Krais said. “It’s going to be cool seeing the unity throughout this meet.”