The meet director kept asking coach Jeanette Bolden to bring her team to the New Balance Collegiate Invitational. This year, the UCLA women’s track team traveled across the country to New York and put up a convincing demonstration of their right to be there.
Two athletes picked up NCAA Championship qualifying marks as did the 4×400-meter relay team.
On Friday, two jumpers earned top-10 national marks in the long jump.
Senior Rhonda Watkins leapt to the No. 2 distance in the country at 21 feet, 3.25 inches to take the event title in New York. The mark is an automatic qualifier, the first one for the Bruins this season.
Watkins, the 2007 indoor and outdoor long jump champion, was 1 centimeter short of the meet record.
Junior Danielle Watson came in fourth in the event and bettered her indoor best to 20-7.25. The distance is the ninth-best nationally and 3.25 inches shy of the automatic mark.
Provisional qualifiers are rewarded to those who make that standard, and a certain number of those are chosen for the NCAA Championships to fill the field based on the amount of automatic qualifiers.
Coming out of the second day of competition, the relay team of senior Krystin Lacy, freshman Camilla Dencer, junior Krishna Curry and sophomore Ashlea McLaughlin qualified provisionally for the national championships.
The foursome ran 3:39.24 to place second and in the top 10 among the collegiate ranks.
Curry also continued her steady improvement this season as she ran another season-best in the 800 meters, finishing 2:09.07 in fourth place.
In the mile, sophomore Shannon Murakami was sixth with a season-best of 4:58.20.
In the high jump, freshman Ryann Krais was fifth, clearing 5-3.75.
BOLDEN SIGNS FOUR: Earlier in the week coach Bolden announced four athletes who signed National Letters of Intent to become a part of the recruiting class of 2009.
Turquoise Thompson (Serra High School) ended 2008 with the No. 1 400-meter hurdles time in the nation at 57.67. The time broke the USATF Junior Olympic Women’s record.
Kayla Kovar (Burroughs High School) is one of the top throwers in the state with a best of 157-8 in the discus and 44-8 in the shot put.
Heather Balbier (Dana Hills High School) is a distance runner who was the No. 2 runner for the state champion cross country team.
Karlye Marshall (Lewis-Palmer High School, Colo.) was the Colorado state runner-up in the pole vault last season.
WORLD XC CHAMPIONSHIPS: Freshman Katja Goldring earned a spot on Team USA for the World Junior Championships.
She ran 21:37 over the 6-kilometer course to place sixth overall.
Goldring was the 2008 MVP for the cross country team and was the No. 1 runner for several meets throughout the season.