Track and Field: Grow, Shay head to NCAAs
By NOAH AMSTADTER
Sports Editor
They started out as two teams of the many, working together for the best possible team finish at each weekend's competition. What remains are the few and the proud, athletes who already have or are working to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Track and field track athletes.
Eleven athletes — four men and seven women — remain at Notre Dame while the rest of the team ended their season with the Big East Championships on May 6. At that meet, the women's team finished third for the third consecutive year, while the men's squad took sixth.
Irish head coach Joe Piane feels that his teams could have placed even higher had it not been bitten by the injury bug. On the women's side, sprinter/long jumper Tameisha King injured her hamstring, an injury Piane thinks kept his team out of second place.
"Tameisha King got hurt," Piane said. "If she wouldn't have been hurt she could have placed in the 100, the 100-meter hurdles and the long jump. That probably would have got us into second place."
On the men's side, the defending champion Irish lost top 2000 scorers Chris Cochran and Marshaun West to graduation while sprinter Tom Gilbert was limited to the long jump with a hamstring injury. Liz Grow and Ryan Shay both were named Most Outstanding Track Performer for the men's and women's competitions, respectively.
Shay won 10,000-meter run in a time of 29:17.61, more than 12 seconds over Steve Bohan of West Virginia. Grow won the 400-meters in a time of 53.17 seconds in the finals, but it was her time of 52.40 in the preliminary heats that benefited her most.
That time automatically qualified Grow for the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore. May 30-June 2. Grow currently is ranked fifth in the nation.
But Notre Dame's top sprinter isn't just running the 400-meters this postseason. Grow teamed up with sophomore Kymia Love and freshmen Kristen Dodd and Ayesha Boyd to take the gold in the 4x100-meter relay at the Big East meet with a time of 45.37 seconds.
The same group took fourth in the 4x400-meter relay, finishing in 3:39.45 seconds. Both relays are in contention for spots at the NCAA meet on Eugene.
Shay, who took part in the Olympic Trials last summer in the 10,000-meters, already automatically qualified for that event earlier this season. He also is competing for a spot in the 5,000-meters. If Shay qualifed in both, he would compete in each event, Piane said.
King expects to return to the track this weekend, taking part in the long jump at the Georgia Tech Invitational. Fellow jumper Jaime Volkmer hopes to qualify for the NCAA's in the pole vault, after taking second at the Big East meet with a vault of 11-feet-11 3/4.
"I placed well but I didn't jump as well as I would have liked to," Volkmer said. "I was kind of disappointed because the height that won, I've jumped before. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to accomplish."
At the Big East meet, Volkmer also competed in the long jump and triple jump. Now she can concentrate on the pole vault exclusively, a focus she thinks will be beneficial.
"I can put all my energy and focus all on vaulting," Volkmer said. "As far as nationals go, I think I'm going to need to jump 13-feet or 13-2 to get in."
The other athletes still competing on the men's side are freshman Kevin Somok and senior Pat Conway in the 1,500-meters and junior Derek Dyer in the discus. Each look to qualify for the NCAA Championships at this weekend's Georgia Tech Invitational.
All Sports Stories for Friday, May 18, 2001
