April 5, 2009
Santa Clara's outdoor track and field teams continued to break school records this weekend, four to be exact, also posting many other personal bests with 800m runners Robbie Reid and John Laughlin breaking the school record back to back. Sophomore Kazimir Brown led the Bronco charge at the Johnny Mathis Invitational at San Francisco State, breaking two individual school records and running the lead off leg of the women's 4x400m relay that ran under 4:00 minutes for the first time ever.
Brown broke the school record in the 100m, crossing the finish line to win gold at 12.20. She later finished fourth in the 200m to also break the school record at 25.54.
In one of the last races of the day, Brown ran the lead-off leg of the 4x400m relay who then passed it to Jenny Light, the speed leg, to Jennifer Hinds and finally to Anna Wheatley on the anchor leg, to finish as the runner-up at 3:59.57.
"We are very proud of the sprinters, but we have even greater expectations as the season progresses," said sprints coach Greg Marshall.
Robbie Reid ran a lifetime best in setting the school record in the 800m, crossing the line at 1:54.41. Before the dust settled on the track, John Laughlin ran in the second heat, chopping five seconds off his personal best and broke Reid's school record by winning in 1:54.34. Richard Zhu ran a lifetime best in the same race at 1:58.22.
Including Brown, the women's 4x400m relay had a busy day prior to their relay race. Earlier in the day Wheatley finished second in the 800m at 2:19.70 and fourth in the 1500m at 4:42.56. Hinds was the runner-up in the 400m at 61.61 and Light was fourth in the 800m at 2:20.07.
Joanna Ginstand ran two personal bests in the 100m hurdles and the 100m.
In the 1500m race Evan Hennessey ran a tough 4:00.23 and Nguyen Le ran a personal best in 4:06.82 in the same race.
Known mostly for its distance runners in the past, most of the Bronco distance runners took a week break from the longer distance races. Stephen Koch continued his comeback with a nice 15:51 in the 5000m; Megan Murnane (19:07) and Monica Coen (19:13) ran their first 5k's and finished strong.
Coach Service and Montoro were particularly impressed with how well the Broncos competed in competitive situations.
"In every close race Santa Clara runners competed hard to catch or hold off the opposition," said Service.
