The UCLA women’s track and field team won the USC-UCLA dual meet Saturday in familiar fashion, beating USC for the 15th straight season.
From the way USC’s women’s track and field team celebrated with its counterpart men’s team, a spectator may have misinterpreted the USC women as victorious. But the Bruin women clearly had the upper hand at Loker Stadium, securing a 98-65 victory.
Hurdler and sprinter Nicole Leach ran a career-best 51.97 in the 400-meter event. After that, Leach made her debut in the 400m hurdles and ran the fastest time in the NCAA this season, setting a new meet and stadium record of 55.60. Making history while running in the blazing heat and in front of rival USC, Leach remained modest when reflecting on her recent successes.
“I didn’t expect to run as fast as I did today,” Leach said. “I just go and compete. Especially today, in the 400m hurdles, I was just tired. I wanted to get the race over with. My mind-set was just to get over the hurdles and finish the race.”
The team swept multiple events and saw many of its athletes achieve personal bests. Right from the beginning of Saturday’s competition, Claire Rethmeier led the Bruins in a sweep of the 5000m event.
This led to successive waves of Bruin dominance.
Led by Allie Bohannon, runner-up in the mile at the 2007 NCAA Indoor Championships, the Bruins swept the 800m event. UCLA also swept the pole vault event, led by Jacqueline Nguyen.
Rhonda Watkins, the NCAA long jump indoor champion, placed first in the long jump and led a sweep of the high jump event. Kamaiya Warren also continued the trend of athletes winning multiple events with first-place finishes in the shot put and discus.
Throughout the dual meet, the Bruins competed as a team and pushed each other in every event.
“Our team is doing great,” Leach said. “We don’t run as often as other schools, so when we get to compete at this meet, we get to see how good we really are. After today, you can see, we’re not bad,”
Reflecting on the team’s performance, coach Jeanette Bolden could only express happiness and pride for her athletes at such a competitive track meet.
“I told the girls on the bus, I’m happy that we won, but I’m more proud that we achieved personal bests and season bests by so many of them,” Bolden said.
“And doing what they did wins track meets. They believe in our program, and hold onto that faith in order to have great performances, like today. This meet kind of starts our season. It shows what we can do in the Pac-10, regionals and more.”
The USC-UCLA dual meet revealed the depth and talent in the UCLA women’s track team. As the team prepares for the upcoming Pac-10 Championships held in Palo Alto from May 12-13, the athletes can reflect on this meet as fuel to improve and dominate future competitions.