2020-21 Shocker Women XC and Track & Field

[1972Shocker]

Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Steve Rainbolt on the Meet

On what a successful meet for the women's team would be
"Our goal is a top-three finish. A top-three finish will feel like we accomplished what we set out to accomplish. Realistically, Houston and Cincinnati appear to be the teams to beat. Beyond that, the rest of the conference appears to be battling for anywhere from third to tenth. It's sort of strange how tightly packed we are with other teams in the league. We want to win that battle. We've got some athletes that, if they hit on all cylinders, pretty darn nice track team with athletes like Rebekah Topham, Winny Koskei, Kendra Henry, Claudia Rojo, Sydney Wilson and a group of throwers that could easily outperform what they're projected to score and horizontal jumpers are jumping well. It goes on and on. We've got a nice women's team. We could easily bounce up and fight for a trophy."

On who has a chance to break out
"Destiny Masters is certainly one. Whether she breaks out this week or next year, she is going to be a heptathlete of significance. Saying Paula Garcia is 'breaking out' is a stretch because she's been on our team for so long and is great, but I think she easily can battle up and be a fixture in the finals of the 100 meters and 200 meters."

[1972Shocker]

WEATHER REPORT
Tampa, Florida
USF Track and Field Stadium
- Friday: Partly Cloudy; High of 87°; 6% chance of rain; NNE winds at 10 mph
- Saturday: Partly Cloudy; High of 88°; 5% chance of rain; NE winds at 14 mph
- Sunday: Partly Cloudy; High of 89°; 10% chance of rain; ENE winds at 14 mph

This is quite warm for a track meet especially if it is humid. Could be an advantage to the more southern teams who are perhaps more acclimated to this kind of weather especially in the longer distance races. Haven't had an especially warm spring in Doo-Dah this year.

[1972Shocker]

The heat sheets are out for this weekends AAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/theamerican.sidearmsports.com/documents/2021/5/12/womens_meet_program.pdf

A few things caught my attention on the women' side of the ledger:

With all the great athletes Houston has they have no participants in the high jump (this is true on the men's side as well).

Looks like Rebekah Topham will compete in 3 events, the 1500m run, the 3000m steeplechase and the 5000m run. The 1500m qualifying rounds are run on Friday evening, the steeplechase is at 7:30 pm on Saturday (the final race of the day), the 1500m finals are on Sunday at around 5:00 pm and the 5k run is about 2 hours later. As with Jed Helker on the men's side you hope the hot conditions don't get to Rebekah.

Graduate transfer Nicole McMillan who has a good shot to score points in the 3000m steeplechase will join Rebekah as well as Winny Koskei in the 5k although NIcole does not appear nearly as strong in the 5k as she is in the steeplechase. Winny will do her traditional double in the long distances adding the 10,000m run to her agenda. As I mentioned in my initial notes above I am not sure exactly where Winny is at with her conditioning but I guess we are going to find out.

Unlike the men where there are only 7 competitors entered into the Decathlon, 5 of them Shocker, there are 20 women entered into the Heptathlon. 6 of the those 20 entrants are Shockers. Sr. Claudia Rojo, Jr. Kendra Henry, Jr. Sydney Wilson, So. Maria Romero, Fr. Anna Heacock and Fr. Destiny Masters. Cincinnati has 3 entries and UCF, SMU, ECU and Tulane have 2 each with Temple, Memphis and Tulsa with 1 each.

[1972Shocker]

Women's Hammer Throw

Houston (1-2 finish) and Memphis (3-4-5-7 finish) dominated this event. Alexandrea Adams did manage to finish 8th to put the Shockers on the board with 1 point. About as expected.

Houston cashed in with 18 points and Memphis had 17 points.

[1972Shocker]

Women's Heptathlon - Day One

The women have completed the 4 day one events (100H, HJ, SP and 200) and unlike the men where only 3 of 7 athletes finished all 5 of the first day events in the decathlon all 20 of the women entered in the heptathlon completed all 4 of today's events.

At this point Junior Sydney Wilson is in 3rd, Senior Claudia Rojo is 6th, Freshman Destiny Masters is in 8th, and Sophomore Maria Romero is in 9th place for the Shocks with the long jump, javelin and 800 on tap for tomorrow.

Sydney is okay in the long jump and 800, not so much the javelin. Same for Claudia. Maybe just a little stronger than Sydney in these 3 events. Could end up with her and Sydney very close but where they will be overall is very difficult to predict Same thing can be said for Maria Romero although Maria is much weaker in the javelin.

No idea on Destiny Masters. No past history to go on. Maria Romero is also okay in the long jump and 800 but javelin is a very weak event for her. Pretty common that the throws (shot put and javelin) are the weak events for the multi-sport athletes.

[1972Shocker]

Women's Javelin

Sophomore Kourtni Hubert had a big 10.5 foot PR with a throw of 156-3 for an unexpected 3rd place finish. However, Junior Kendra Henry was 32 feet shy of her career best of 161-0 and finished in 10th place. Kourtni Hubert earns All-Conference honors with her top 3 finish. I don't know if Kendra is dealing with an injury situation or not.

[1972Shocker]

Women's 1500m Prelims

Rebekah Topham and Yazmine Wright cruise into the the 12-runner final at 4:50 on Sunday.

[1972Shocker]

Women's 200m Prelims

The sprints are always tough in the AAC as it is loaded with quality sprinters. Paula Garcia ran a 24.17 and Jacque Darby ran a 24.18 (a new PR for her) but of the 8 qualifiers (from 5 heats) 7 were under 24 seconds and the 8th qualifier was at 24.04. Good effort by Paula and Jacque. Paula has run under 24 seconds in her career but not quite there today.

[1972Shocker]

Women's 400H Prelims

Claudia Rojo just does make the finals as the 8th and final qualifier. Guarantees the Shocks at least 1 point. Not expecting much more than that.

[1972Shocker]

Women's 10k Finals

Winny finishes 5th in 36:18.11. This is about 1.5 minutes slower than the winner from Tulsa and about 2 minutes slower than she ran in Wichita in 2019 to win her 2nd AAC 10k championship.

Winny definitely not clicking on all cylinders this spring. Kudos to her for battling through whatever she is dealing with.

[1972Shocker]

Women's Heptathlon - Day 2

The Shocks accumulated 10 points as Claudio Rojo finished 3rd, Destiny Masters 6th and Maria Romero 8th in the women's multi-event.

Women's Long Jump

Shocker senior Jacque Darby picked up a point with an 8th place finish with jump of 19-6.75 which is a quarter-inch shy of her PR.

Women's Shot Put

Amanda Kakoulias, out of Andover Central, set a new PR with a put of 49-0.75 to finish 7th and pick up 2 points.

Women's 800m Prelims

Junior Yazmine Wright cut about 3 seconds off her PR in running a 2:07.82 to qualify for the 8-runner final on Sudnay with fastest time of the prelims.

Women's 100m Prelims

Senior Paula Garcia ran a new PR of 11.6 seconds to finish 8th in the Prelims and grab the final spot in Sunday's final.

Women's 3000m Steeplechase

Senior Rebekah Topham broke her own AAC Championship record by 9 seconds on her way to another win in the steeplechase with a time of 10:05.57. Grad transfer Nicole McMillen finished 4th with a time of 10:21.84 as the Shocks captured 15 points.

Coach Bolt was shooting for a top 3 finish for the Shocker women and that is still a possibility but not assured by any means. Needs all his athletes to perform at their best on Sunday.

[1972Shocker]

While the Shocker men have at least a somewhat legitimate shot at upsetting Houston for the Men's Championship the Shocker women's goals are much more modest. They were hoping for a top 3 finsih as their goal. Not sure they will get there primarily because I don't think Winnie Koskei or Kendra Henry are totally healthy and in peak condition and the Shocks needed their contributions to achieve this goal. We just have to see how it goes.

The main thing I am going to focus on is how will Shocker senior, Rebekah Topham, close out her Shocker Hall of Fame career. Topham has won three AAC Championship meet MVP awards, which goes to the athlete that scores the most team points. She won those awards indoors in 2019 and 2020 and is the reigning award winner outdoors as she won in 2019 at the most recent AAC Outdoor Championships. Can she make it four.

She already has a win in the Steeplechase for 10 points. She owns the third-fastest time in the 1,500 meters and the fourth-fastest 5,000 meters times in the AAC this year. So she's looking at a possible 21 points and potentially a little more if she can successfully handle this very difficult triple.

Including her steeplechase win this year, Rebekah has earned 7 AAC individual titles, but has a collective 11 individual conference titles including her four titles in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Rebekah really has nothing more to prove in her career but she came back for her super senior season and it wasn't just to be team grandma.

Good luck, Rebekah.

[ShockTalk]

While the Shocker men have at least a somewhat legitimate shot at upsetting Houston for the Men's Championship the Shocker women's goals are much more modest. They were hoping for a top 3 finsih as their goal. Not sure they will get there primarily because I don't think Winnie Koskei or Kendra Henry are totally healthy and in peak condition and the Shocks needed their contributions to achieve this goal. We just have to see how it goes.

The main thing I am going to focus on is how will Shocker senior, Rebekah Topham, close out her Shocker Hall of Fame career. Topham has won three AAC Championship meet MVP awards, which goes to the athlete that scores the most team points. She won those awards indoors in 2019 and 2020 and is the reigning award winner outdoors as she won in 2019 at the most recent AAC Outdoor Championships. Can she make it four.

She already has a win in the Steeplechase for 10 points. She owns the third-fastest time in the 1,500 meters and the fourth-fastest 5,000 meters times in the AAC this year. So she's looking at a possible 21 points and potentially a little more if she can successfully handle this very difficult triple.

Inluding her steeplechase win this year, Rebekah has earned 7 AAC individual titles, but has a collective 11 individual conference titles including her four titles in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Good luck, Rebekah.

Great post to a great Shocker athlete.

Yes! Good luck, Rebekah!!

whos-awesome-youre-awesome-may-the-force-be-with-you.jpg

[1972Shocker]

Women's 1500m Final
Rebekah took 4th followed closedly by teammate Yazmine Wright in 5th. Rebekah now has 15 points. The Shocks move into 4th place 7 points behind Memphis.

Women's 800m Final

Yazmine Wright finished 4th in a very competitive 800m race as the top 4 finishers were separated by 0.73 seconds.

Women's High Jump

Shocker freshman Destiny Masters, out of El Dorado, was very impressive finishing 2nd in the high jump with a new PR of 5-10.5. She is a very good looking athlete. Will be interesting to we how she develops as a multi-event athlete.

Shocks are in 3rd place with 69 points with two events remaining to be scored. However, they only lead Memphis and and UCF by 3 points and South Florida and Temple by 11 points. Temple looks to be very strong in the 5k and with Winny not seemingly at full strength I don't know if the Shocks can hang on. Not sure how well Rebekah and Winnie will be able to handle the heat and humidity. You could really see some of their teammates dagging a bit in some of the later races.

Women's 5k Final

Looked like Grace Moore of Temple, the favorite was going to run away with the race but she went to fast to soon and faded badly at the end in the heat while her teamate Michelle Joyce passed her for the win and Rebekah passed her for 2nd. Moore did finish 3rd and another Temple runner was 4th. Shocker grad transfer Nicole McMillen finished 7th. That's 21 points for Temple and 10 for the Shocks. So Temple and the Shocks are now tied for 3rd with 79 points each.

3rd place will come down to who finihses best in the 4x400 relay to close out the meet. That would seem to favor Temple as the Shocks are very poor in this event.

Women's 4x400 Relay

Temple finished 7th about 2.5 seconds faster than the 9th place Shockers and edge the Shockers for third play 81-79.

I had the Shockers pegged at 77 points. Pretty close.

[1972Shocker]

Oh yeah, and BTW she did it again for the 4the time in her career - 2 indoor and 2 outdoor:



Rebekah accumulated 23 of the Shockers 79 points. 10 in the steeplchase, 5 in the 1500m run and 8 in the 5000m run.

Congratulations Rebekah. Those are some Nike's that won't be easily filled.