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Feb. 4, 2004
Women's Track & Field: Penguins Set to Make Championship Run in 2004
The men’s indoor track and field team broke
down a barrier last season by
winning YSU’s first Horizon League
Championship in any sport.
Now, head coach Brian Gorby thinks
this is the year for the women to
break through and bring home their
championship trophy.
Coming off of a fourth-place finish in the conference during
the indoor season and an outdoor
season with an abundance of
redshirts, the 2004 women’s track
and field team will feature an
experienced group of veterans and a
group of freshmen that Gorby has
dubbed “the best recruit class in
Ohio.”
“We have a solid mix of veterans with a lot of great
leadership and a lot of young people
with a lot of great talent,” Gorby
said. “We’re very deep and we
can fill every event. If we
continue to improve and stay
healthy, this group will definitely
have a lot of success when in counts
at the end of the season.”
The sprint group will have a powerful top-three punch with
juniors Jeanna Cunningham and
Aaliyah Gillespie and freshman
Danielle Bolt. Cunningham came
on late to finish third in the 400
and seventh in the 200 at the
conference meet last season after
being named Horizon League Newcomer
of the Year as a freshman.
Gillespie is coming off of a
breakout season in which she set the
Horizon League record in the 60
hurdles while also posting a
fifth-place finish in the 60 dash
and an eighth-place finish in the
200 at the conference meet.
Bolt, a former Massachusetts
state-champion in the 55 and 100,
has already shown she is ready to
compete at the collegiate level as
she set the YSU record in the 60 in
her first meet.
“This group gives us a chance to get back to our tradition of
being dominant in the sprints,”
Gorby said. “Their skill and
leadership gives us a great chance
to achieve our ultimate goal of
winning the conference
championship.”
Gorby said that Alex Casi and Leslie Johnson will also be
looked upon to score key points late
in the year, mainly in the 400.
Even with the high expectations of the sprinters, Gorby said
that it is the group of distance
runners that could set the team
apart from the rest of the
conference. Coming off of a
cross country season where the
record books were rewritten, Gorby
hopes the momentum will continue
into the indoor season.
“We should be able to score a lot of points in the distance
events,” Gorby said. “Our
depth will allow us to put several
runners in each event.
Hopefully our success in cross
country will springboard right into
track.”
At the head of that record-setting cross country squad was
freshman Lisa Davies, who set the
school record in the 6K and was
named conference Newcomer of the
Year after posting a second-place
finish at the Horizon League
Championship. Also joining
Davies from the squad will be
Lindsay Wojciak, who improved her
personal-best times by more than 30
seconds in cross country, and a trio
of freshmen that includes Marielle
Glanz, Kim Jendre and Jenn Wenhold.
Junior Emily Schnitkey will look to
return to form after consecutive
redshirt seasons in outdoor track
and cross country. Schnitkey,
the 2001 Horizon League Newcomer of
the Year in cross country, won her
first race back at the Black
Squirrel Classic on Jan. 10.
Senior Laura Schatz and Casi will return to head a jumps
squad that will be without the
services of Lissette Alamo, who
finished second in the long jump and
third in the triple jump at the 2003
indoor conference meet. Schatz
was the conference champion in the
high jump as a sophomore and
finished third last season while
Casi finished ninth in the long jump
and triple jump in her debut season.
Katy Williams will be the lone returnee from a throwing
contingent that dominated at the
2003 outdoor league championship.
Williams finished third in the
conference in the discus and seventh
in the weight throw last season.
Joining her will be former high
school All-Americans Amy and Lindsey
Hill. While at Mount Vernon
High, Amy Hill was a two-time
All-American in the javelin and a
one-time All-American in the shot
put and discus while twin Lindsey
Hill earned All-America honors twice
in the shot put. |
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