Indoor track and field teams take Big Sky titles;
Raske wins coach of the year honors
Kathleen Raske
The University’s track and field teams have had a banner year, with wins at the Big Sky Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships and men’s and women’s indoor track coach Kathleen Raske winning the Big Sky Conference Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year.
Raske led the Hornet men and women to conference titles at the Big Sky Indoor Championships, Feb. 29 through March 1 in Pocatello, Idaho. The men have now won the team title two years in a row. It was the first women’s indoor title in school history.
Raske’s award was voted on by the conference’s nine head coaches.
The award marked the second straight season in which Raske has been named the league’s Men’s Coach of the Year. She also became the first coach to win both awards since Northern Arizona’s Ron Mann in 1990.
Track and field has always been a sport measured by fractions of an inch or a split second, and nowhere was that more evident than March 1 at the 2008 Big Sky Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships. Sacramento State’s men’s and women’s teams won both team titles by one point at the championship in Pocatello, Idaho.
The men’s team finished with 141 points and defended its title from a season ago by holding off Weber State (140) and Northern Arizona (108). The women tallied 112 points to edge Weber State (111) for its first team title in school history.
Individually, senior Raphael McFarlane was named the Men’s Track Athlete of the Meet and the Field Athlete of the Meet, joining Dan O’Brien as the only people to win both awards at the same meet in conference history. McFarlane, who won the long jump on Friday, also set the record for individual points at the championships by winning the 60-meter dash and the 200 on Saturday and placing second in the triple jump. His 38 points accounted for 27 percent of the team’s total.
“This is the most special moment I have had in 18 years of coaching,” Raske says. “Both of the teams came together and overcame some setbacks. It is just amazing.”
Both team titles came down to the 4x400 relay. The men entered the race trailing by four points to Weber State and needed to win while the Wildcats had to finish no higher than third. The Hornets did their part of the equation as the team of Jason Nelson, Alex Jackson, Jermaine Wilson and Jody Johnson ran 3:13.43. Johnson, who had never competed in the 400, ran the anchor leg in 47.2 seconds to catapult the team to victory. Northern Arizona then provided some help by sneaking past Weber State by .32 seconds to finish second.
The women’s task was a little simpler in the 4x400. The team just had to finish ahead of Weber State in the race and they did just that, running 3:38.55 to place second while WSU clocked 3:48.75. The Hornets featured three freshmen (Victoria Humphrey, Chelsea Davis, Renisha Robinson) in the opening three legs but closed with senior Tyreina Henley-Henderson.
The women’s team, which had never finished higher than fifth at the Big Sky Indoor meet, became the second California team to win the conference indoor title, joining Cal State Northridge, which won in 1999.
On Saturday, the women were aided by three individual victories. Freshman Alicia Truesdale won the 60 in 7.62 seconds, Robinson won the 800 in 2:10.26 and senior Lori Vaught followed her win in the long jump on Friday by winning the triple jump at 41-01.75. Other scorers included Henley-Henderson who added three points in the 200 (25.40) and six in the 400 (56.56). Humphrey also scored a point in the 400 after running 58.09. Kristina Holtz provided three points in the mile (5:05.23) and senior Tiffany Hall scored one in the 3K (10:11.08). Truesdale (8.73) and Moira Robinson (8.76) finished second and third, respectively in the 60-hurdles to add a combined 14 points.
In the field, freshman Kaitlynne Moore scored one in the pole vault (11-11.75) and Moira Robinson, Natalia Wright and Naima Goodwin (all freshmen) combined for 10 points in the long jump.
Senior Jeffrey Paneda and junior A.J. Reed also recorded wins on Saturday for the men. Paneda won the 800 in 1:54.34 while Reed ran 8.15 to win the 60-hurdles. Johnson provided eight additional points with a second-place showing in the 60 (6.78). Jackson was fourth in the 400 (48.64) for five points, and Ronald Brookins tallied six points by placing third in the 60-hurdles in 8.24 seconds.
The men also scored in the field where sophomore Emilio Hernandez cleared 6-06.75 to place third in the high jump and jumped 46-03.25 to finish fifth in the triple jump. Freshman Derek Hammond was fourth in the triple (46-06.25) and senior Robert Brazier broke his own school record to finish second in the heptathlon with 5,062 points.
Kathleen Raske