| Aztec Awaits After Team Excels at Classic
Three Athletes Pick Up Provisional Marks, Two School Records Set March 21, 2002 Beach Head to Aztec Invite: This Saturday the 49ers will head down Interstate 405 for the Aztec Invite before Stanford's meet next weekend.
The Coach: Director Andy Sythe is in his 13th season as director of both the track and field and cross country programs. During Sythe's tenure, 49er track athletes have achieved 73 NCAA qualifying performances, 55 conference champions, had 18 All-Americans, three Big West Athletes of-the-year, one NCAA national champion and another NCAA runner-up.
Excellent Performance From Classic: Both the men's and women's teams (189 points each) took home team titles as three athletes scored NCAA provisional marks and two others set school-records. Jon O'Neil (shot, discus), Emily Forsythe (high jump) and Cory Loebl (discus) each picked up marks to be considered for the NCAA Championship meet, while Jennifer Yadon set the school-record in the steeple chase (11:57.06) while Stephanie Sampson broke LBSU's record in the hammer (180'11.5).
Strong Start: With just a month gone by in the outdoor season, 24 women and 19 men have put forth qualifying marks for the Conference Championships. This season has also seen a combined 55 seasonal or lifetime bests.
Hitting the Books: Eight women and two men were named to the Indoor Academic All-MPSF team. For The Beach, triple jumper Kenya Jimerson (4.00 grad school), thrower Samy Meredith (3.714) and jumper Connie Jerz (3.575) each have cumulative GPAs over 3.5.
Traveling the Country: Jon O'Neil (Fountain Valley) and Connie Jerz (Tucson, AZ) racked up the frequent flyer miles to end the indoor season. After competing at the MPSF Championships in Flagstaff, AZ on February 21, the duo traveled to New York City the next week for the USATF Championsips, followed by a trip to the NCAA Championships, hosted by Arkansas the week after.
At the USATFs, O'Neil finished 10th in the shot and 17th in the weight, while Jerz was fifth in the pole vault. Jerz finished 15th at her third NCAA event the following week, while O'Neil was 14th in the shot put at his fourth NCAA Championship. Strong Performance at MPSFs: Brian Stehmeier (800m, 10th), Daniel Gerlach (long jump, 8th), Jessica Williams (400m, 10th), Holly Lipscomb (long jump, 10th), Gladys Iwuaba (triple jump, 6th) Shannon Daniels (weight, 8th) and Kenya Jimerson (triple jump, 7th) all finished in the top-10 of their respective events at the MPSF Indoor Championsips. The MPSF is considered one of the nation's toughest conference's, featuring teams from the Pac-10, WAC and Big West.
CROSS COUNTRY: Drea Palacio (Fresno), with a 10th place finish (18:49.9) at the Big West Championship 5K on October 27 became the first all-conference runner for The Beach since 1993. The team's sixth place showing was also the highest since 1993. For the men, they finished eighth with Aaron Durham finishing in 28th place (27:22.4).
NCAA Regional XC: This year the men finished 15th, while the women were 17th. |
