By MELANIE BRIDGE
The BYU women’s track team heads to Irvine, Calif., Saturday hoping to make up for last week’s fourth-place finish. However, the same problems that plagued the team at Cal Poly are still lingering.
In order to be competitive, a team must take enough athletes to earn points in all the events.
“Every team is allowed two entries per event,” said head coach Craig Poole. “In every event we enter we get points, so when we don’t have enough athletes we are giving away points.”
In a dual meet, which is what BYU usually competes in, there are 19 individual events and two relays. To be competitive and score, BYU would need to take a team of 38 to the meet. Right now they are scheduled to take 22 athletes to Irvine, Poole said.
Being competitive and winning meets improves the team’s standing and reputation. However, in track only the national championship and conference meet count, and the athletes have to qualify to compete in those meets. So for qualification purposes, it doesn’t really matter how many girls BYU takes to each meet.
During outdoor track season, most athletes need 10 to 11 competitions in their event to preform at their peak, according to Remi, one of the top sprint coaches from Russia.
Because BYU competes in only 12 competitions during their season, and it has a limited budget, it must pick and choose which athletes compete when.
“We work out the schedule almost the whole season in advance, and then it is modified by health, and who is ready,” Poole said.
The younger runners need the chance to improve and gain experience just as much as the team needs the more experienced runners to win the meets. In spite of the small team, the Cougars still expect to do well at Irvine.
“The first meet is kind of to break you in,” hurdler Jill Rudman said. “This week we hope to do a lot better.”
Sarah Ellis, who topped the BYU sweep in the 1500 meters last week, is excited to run at Irvine because her family will be there to watch.
“With my family there the race means more, there is something to run for,” Ellis said.
BYU will also be sending part of its team to Stanford. Irvine is not running some of the distance events that BYU needs to compete in, so most of the distance team is going to Stanford.
At Stanford, All-Americans Maggie Chan and Courtney Pugmire Meldrom, will compete for the first time in the outdoor season.
The BYU men’s team will also be sending some of its athletes to Irvine and Stanford. They are coming off a win at Cal Poly last week and hope to produce more of the same.
