Central Michigan University Athletics
Women's Track Heads to Michigan
1/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
MOUNT PLEASANT A non-scored event will give the Central Michigan University women’s track team a chance to fine tune some events on Saturday, Jan. 26. The Chippewas are heading to the University of Michigan for the Simmons/Harvey Invitational.
Men’s field events begin at 9 a.m., with women’s field events starting at 10 a.m. The starting gun for track events fires at noon. Also competing on the women’s side will be host Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Detroit. The Wolverines are the No. 4-ranked team in the country.
“We’re looking to continue to make improvements,” coach Karen Lutzke said. “It is a non-scored meet, so we are going to take the opportunity to focus each athlete on an event. For example, we are not going to run our 4x400m relay “A” team. We are going to have them concentrate on their other events.”
CMU is coming off a fourth-place finish at the Akron vs. “Michigans” meet last weekend. Michigan won the event with 170 points, followed by Akron (138), Michigan State (100) and Central Michigan (85).
The Chippewas had runner-up finishes in three events. Erika Schroll had a high jump of 5-6 to place second and Jenaie Edwards was second in the 400m with a time of 55.42. Edwards also anchored the runner-up 4x400m relay team. She joined Stephanie Byrne, Cara Dukes and Tempestt Stanford in running a 3:53.99.
CMU notched a pair of third-place finishes in field events as Whitney Johnson had a weight throw toss of 54-1 and Aleisha Leeper had a triple jump of 37-3 3/4.
One of the performances that was easily overlooked was Kelly McClure’s 3000m time of 9:50.77. She placed fourth in the meet but the time was the second best in school history and a 28-second improvement on her personal best.
McClure Continues to Shine: Kelly McClure had a standout fall as a member of the cross country team and she is continuing to build upon it during the indoor track season. Her 3000m time of 9:50.77 last week was second best in school history. “Kelly is very competitive,” Lutzke said. “She’s a natural athlete who played many sports in high school but didn’t run cross country. All she knew how to do was compete. Kelly trained too hard when she got here as a freshman for cross country and it took her a while to learn how to train.” McClure’s first break came when she was in a slow 3000m heat at the MAC championships and she ran 10:18.28. She was looking to build on that during the outdoor season in the steeplechase but the cold weather stopped her from competing in the tough event. When she finally got a chance to compete at the Hillsdale Relays, she got knocked down on the hurdle. “That set her up for her big breakthough which was at the MAC Championships,” Lutzke said. “ Since then, she has competed at a totally different level.” McClure was the MAC runner-up, finishing just three seconds behind the champion. “It took her two and a half years learn she can not run hard every day,” Lutzke said. “We’re limiting her competition this year. The great thing about her is she just goes out and competes, she doesn’t over analyze. We finally found the formula for her and now she’s seeing the results.”
Breakthrough Coming?: Another athlete who has made big improvements is sophomore thrower Whitney Johnson. She placed third in the weight throw (54-1) last week and seventh in the shot put (39-6 ). “Whitney had a big PR in the weight throw last week,” Lutzke said. “She has gotten so much stronger from her freshman year to her sophomore year and we’re working on her consistency. She is developing as an athlete and we’re expecting a breakout performance from her any meet now.”
