Grow guns it on homestretch to beat Olympian
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
The gun went off for the women's 400 meters, and Liz Grow found herself in an unfamiliar position.
Second place.
Canadian Olympian Foye Williams blasted out of the blocks and led the talented Irish junior for the first half of the race. In fact, Williams led by almost five meters with only 100 meters to go, an almost insurmountable margin with such a short distance remaining.
But Williams appeared to slow down on the final straightaway, and Grow surged past the Canadian to take first place at the 14th annual Meyo Invitational.
"Foye took it out very fast," Grow said. "I thought if I just hung on and tried to stay close to her, I could catch her in the end. It was basically all adrenaline."
Grow shattered her own school record in the 400 by running 53.3 seconds, an astonishing .75 seconds faster than her old mark set last year. Her time ranks among the fastest times run by a collegiate athlete this season.
"I was real excited for her," said Irish sprints coach John Millar. "I think she went into that meet with a purpose, and obviously her purpose was to win that race and qualify for NCAA. It was an outstanding performance for her."
Grow also qualified for the 60-meter dash final, but scratched from the final in order to prepare for her specialty, the 400.
"We discussed [scratching] after the first round of the 60," Millar said, "and we thought it might take some energy away from the 400. She felt pretty good and wanted to focus on the 400. Obviously, it worked."
Because there was no team scoring at the Meyo Invitational, the focus was on individual performances. Millar was especially pleased with the efforts of Ayesha Boyd and Kymia Love. Both runners ran their best times of the season — Boyd ran a 7.64 in the 60-meter dash, and Love ran 55.98 in the 400.
Boyd and Love teamed up with Grow and Kristen Dodd to take first place in the 4x400-meter relay, running their fastest time of the season, 3:49.88. Boyd put the Irish on record-setting pace with her 55.9 third leg. The Irish missed the old record, set last year, by four seconds.
Tameisha King won the long jump for the third straight week, but the sophomore All-American sophomore false started in both the 60-meter dash and the 60-meter hurdles, disqualifying her from both events.
"We talked a little bit about it, and that's one of those things you can't get mad at her for," said Millar. "I think part of this has to do with concentration and focus. I told her yesterday `You're allowed one mistake,' and she had hers."
As they have all season, the Irish dominated the pole vault competition.
Jaime Volkmer took second place with a vault of 12 feet, breaking her week-old school record. Natalie Hallet and Jennifer Van Weelden took third and fourth place.
"They're doing a great job," Irish field events coach Scott Winsor said. "They're very consistent. The best thing a coach can ask for is consistency."
In the high jump, freshman Jennifer Kearney's 5-3 jump was good enough for third place.
Notre Dame fielded their first distance medley relay of the season, and the team of Megan Johnson, Amanda Alvarez, Leanne Brady and Jennifer Handley took second place with a time of 11:49.
"I thought we had three good legs, but our 800 leg [Brady] wasn't very strong," said Irish distance coach Tim Connolly.
Brady redeemed herself in the 1,000. With one lap to go, she was in seventh place, but she out-kicked a tight pack to finish second.
"She actually ran real intelligently and stayed under control," Connolly said. "She's had trouble learning how to stay under control early, but this year, she's learning how to race."
Connolly cautioned his runners against going out too fast and trying to stay with the top runners. For example, in the 3,000 meter run, professional runner Kris Eihle, who ran in last summer's Olympic Trials, ran a blistering 9:12.
Notre Dame runners Bridget O'Brien and Hillary Burn started towards the back of the pack, but finished seventh and eighth.
"They weren't ready to go out 9:12 — going out that fast would have been suicide,"Connolly said. "They had to run well, and I thought they ran a good race. They were able to run hard at the end of the race, as opposed to struggling to finish."
In the 5,000 meter run, Chrissy Kuenster ran a personal-best 17:44, but Connolly believed she could have gone even faster.
"Chrissy ran too fast," he said. "She ran a PR, but I think she probably could have gone 15 to 20 seconds faster had she gone out slower."
The Irish also got solid performances from Handley and Johnson in the mile.
Handley ran her best open mile of the season (4:53) to take fifth place overall. Johnson was in last place for the first two laps, but then she moved through the field to take eighth place.
"That's the first race of Megan's life where it's gone out hard and stayed hard," Connolly said. "She's a kid that if she can stay under control early, she's going to finish well. She had a good race."
Notre Dame's next meet is Friday and Saturday, when the Irish will compete in the Cannon IV Invitational held in Indianapolis.
All Sports Stories for Monday, February 5, 2001
