2/14/2003 - Women's Track and Field
Navy Indoor Track & Field Teams Travel to Army
The Navy track & field teams will face arch-rival Army Saturday in the annual indoor Star Meet at Gillis Field House in West Point, N.Y.
The men's team is coming off a first-place finish in its meet last Saturday versus Delaware, Fordham, La Salle and St. Joseph's. Bubba Durrum (Mt. Pleasant, Texas) was named the Patriot League Field Athlete of the Week after setting a meet high and career-best mark of 15'3" in the pole vault. Other first-place results for the Mids included Nate Michael (Pilot Point, Texas) in the shot put, Lord Cole (Northridge, Calif.) and Shalimar Brazier (Detriot, Mich.) in the 55m, Eric Porter (Brookeville, Md.) in the 400, Erik Schmidt (Spokane, Wash.) in the 800, Aaron Lanzel (Sugar Grove, Pa.) in the 1000, Brazier in the 200, Rudyard Olmstead (Monument, Colo.) in the 5000 and the winning 4x440-yard relay team.
"As usual in this meet, the outcome is hard to predict as it should be a close meet," Navy head coach Stephen Cooksey said. "Army has improved in some areas where we thought we were comfortable. That sheds a new light on things, and we'll have to work hard in those areas to counter them. I feel we are the strongest in the middle distance group and up. We'll have to offset their strength in the field events and not allow them to go 1-2 in these particular events. There's definitely going to be all sorts of emotions and attempts at distractions because we are not in our home environment. We'll have to stay focused and tune those things out in order to be successful."
On the women's side, the team also won its meet last weekend against the same four teams in Halsey Field House. Shannon Crites (Powell, Ohio) gave Navy a sweep of the league's top-field performers for the week, as she set two career highs and tied a season-best mark. In her first competition of the year in the event, Crites recorded the meet's best mark in the long jump, an 18'1/2" effort to set a new career best. She later tied a personal best and team season-best mark of 5'5" in the high jump before capping the afternoon with a first place-tying and career-best time of 8.43 in the 55m. She tied teammate Allison Whatley (Monroeville, Pa.) in the event.
Navy also earned first-place results by the 4x440-yard relay team, Joanne Uwujaren (Burke, Va.) in the triple jump, Amanda Hasenauer (Sebastian, Fla.) in the pole vault, Ashleigh Shear (Chapin, S.C.) in the shot put and Tineisha Davis (Madisonville, Ky.) in the 500m. Hasenauer's feat of 12'9-1/2" tied the Naval Academy record that she had set last season and extended her career home unbeaten streak in the event.
"The meet should be extremely exciting, as Army-Navy meets are always evenly matched," noted Navy head coach Carla Criste. "It will come down to which Academy wants it more. I know our runners are definitely excited about it, and the senior class wants to continue their streak of having never lost to Army, indoor or outdoor, and graduate with two more N-Stars this season."
