April 3, 2003

By John Maloney

This Saturday, the Mission Harriers will venture north to San Francisco State for their next spring track meet. Seveal members of the women's team is entered in the 5000-meters. The men's team is split between five athletes in the 5000-meters and three others doubling at 1500 and 800-meters. The women's entries are Robin Bell, Milena Basile, Katie Hansen, Cara Payne, Kylie Strong, Tara Rooney, Erin Davis, Julianne Visbal, and Monica Tomich. The men's entries in the 5000m at J.P. Thyken, Chris Doerhoff, Pat Green, Kevin Edwards, and Dominic Guidera. John Hinman, Ricky Brackett, and Bryan Lorentz will double.

This is the second meet of the spring with the first one four weeks earlier. Final exams and spring break for the winter quarter occupied the time for the teams. The women currently are holding the #2, #3, and #5 times for WCC schools at 5000-meters this spring. The top time in the conference is 17:50. This time is within reach of Robin Bell and Milena Basile who have both broken 18 minutes in their first meet. Katie Hansen holds the #5 time and needs to drop 2 seconds to get to the #4 spot. Julianne Visbal and Monica Tomich will make their spring debut.

John Hinman and Ricky Brackett will be racing their first 1500 of the season with their sights at breaking 4 minutes. Mike Helms is the only Bronco to have broken 4 minutes with a best of 3:56.01 in 2001. Hinman and Brackett ran unattached last week at the Stanford Invitational in the 5000m. They posted the top two 5000m times on the team this spring. Combined with Thyken, Doerhoff, and Green's performances in March, these five are all under 15:40. This is 20 seconds faster than the team's fifth runner from last spring season. These three aim to drop their times from their debut four weeks ago in a deeper field this week.