The Charger women’s track team launched the outdoor season at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The team fought the steep competition of mostly division I teams, finishing well in their events. Freshman Carmen Botha said the transition from indoor to the outdoor season can create a challenge.
“Sometimes it’s an adjustment coming out of indoor going into outdoor, just because of the way there are conditions and so on, especially in the beginning of the season,” she said. “It can kind of play with your mind sometimes if you’re thinking of ‘oh, is it gonna rain when I run? Am I gonna have to compensate for that?’”
Head coach Andrew Towne said he thought the women handled the transition well.
“I always talk about how outdoor track is what our kids know,” Towne said. “Indoor is kind of an adaptation so I think people are excited to get back to what they know, get outside. I thought we had very competitive mentality for the first meet.”
The team’s freshmen held their own in their first outdoor track meet as Chargers. Botha finished fourth in the 400 hurdle race with a time of 1:03.75. She made two personal bests, one in the 100 meter hurdles, when she finished third in her heat. Freshman Callie Townsend was right behind in fifth place.
“ I feel like I’ve just gotten much stronger with Coach Towne doing a lot of speed work with us and doing a lot of hurdle work,” Botha said. “And we’ve been in the weight room a lot and I just feel so much stronger. It just feels easier for me to get over the hurdles, whereas usually it was almost like an effort for me, now I feel almost comfortable in this time and I can really improve on that, so I just need to start pushing myself.”
“Two lifetime bests is pretty darn good,” Towne said.
Throwers also performed well. Senior legacy captain Rachael Tolsma finished fourth in the hammer throw, making a distance of 50.18 meters, and freshman Caylin Bonser took fifth place in the discus. While the distance runners stayed home, the mid-distance runners were a force, sophomore Abbie Porter taking fifth place in the 800 meter race, finishing in 2:15.79. Porter said running with division I athletes, she knew the race would be tough.
“In the beginning I didn’t start out quite as fast as I wanted to and I got kind of stuck in the back just in a clump, but in the end I was able to move ahead a bit,” Porter said. “It still wasn’t the time I wanted considering I had finished faster at the indoor season, but I think it was a good starting point.”
Porter said she really liked competing outdoors, and the space of the 400 meter track.
“Hopefully it’s a good outdoor season,” she said.
The entire team will compete at Oliver Nikoloff Invite at the University of Cincinnati this weekend.
