Tuesday, 6/24/97 Lady Tigers edge out Bruins to a third place finish W. TRACK: A disappointed UCLA garners a handful of individual titles in NCAA championships
By Donald Morrison Daily Bruin Staff History repeated itself at the 1997 NCAA Track and Field Championships, held in Bloomington, Indiana. The Louisiana State Tigers won their 11th straight women's track championship, upending UCLA's bid to win its first title since 1983. LSU captured the national title with 63 points, edging the second place Texas Longhorns, who had 62 points. The Bruins finished third, with 56 points. UCLA sent 11 athletes to the NCAA meet and looked poised to win its fourth national title during the 1996-97 school year. UCLA led early in the four-day meet, held June 4-7, and after three days had 46 points. Texas was second with 21 points and LSU was third with 20 points. UCLA received fine results from its athletes. Freshman Seilala Sua captured the NCAA discus title with a throw of 200 feet, 6 inches. Suzy Powell, the Pac-10 discus champion, finished second with a mark of 198-7. Nada Kawar finished sixth for the Bruins with a throw of 177-3. Sua capped off her great meet by placing third in the shot put with a heave of 55-8 1/4. Kawar placed fourth in the same event with a throw of 55-4 1/4. Powell won her first NCAA title by winning the javelin throw, tying her personal best of 179-2. The biggest blow to UCLA's national-title hopes came on the first day of competition when hurdler Joanna Hayes hyper-extended her right knee during a 400-meter hurdle qualifying race. Hayes' injury forced her to withdraw from the 100-meter hurdle competition, an event in which she was ranked eighth before the meet Hayes did come through for the Bruins when she ran the 400-meter hurdle final. She was in ninth place over the last hurdle and managed to outkick two runners to place seventh and score two points for the Bruins. She also competed in the final of the 4x100-meter relay along with Bisa Grant, Darlene Malco and Andrea Anderson. The Bruins, who had Hayes run the anchor leg because of her knee, finished sixth with a time of 44.76. Rachelle Noble scored two points for the Bruins when she threw the hammer 188-4 to place seventh. Amy Acuff, looking to win her third NCAA outdoor title and sixth overall NCAA title in the high jump, did not fare as well as she would have liked. Acuff jumped 6-2 3/4 to finish second behind Kajsa Bergqvist of Southern Methodist University. Bergqvist jumped 6-4 to win the competition in the rain. Acuff tried one attempt at 6-4 and missed, then failed to clear her next two attempts at 6-5. "I was having flashbacks out there to the Olympic Games when it started raining right after I cleared 6-1 and the same thing happened here with the slick, hard surface," Acuff said. "I was really terrified to accelerate in the rain but I gave it my best. It just wasn't good enough today." Freshman Deana Simmons just missed scoring for UCLA in the triple jump. Aided by the wind, Simmons placed ninth in the nation at the meet with a mark of 43-1 3/4. Senior Katherina Kechris, competing in the NCAA Championships for the first time in her career, qualified for the final in the 3000-meter run and placed 12th with a time of 9:55.13, 32 seconds off her personal best. Malco and Anderson, the two top finishers at the Pac-10 Championships for 400 meters, failed to qualify for the final. Grant did not qualify for the 100- meter hurdle final. The LSU sprint corps took over on the last day of competition and capitalized on UCLA's near-misses in the scoring department. The Lady Tigers scored 43 points on the last day of competition. Astia Walker won the 100-meter hurdles in a time of 12.85 seconds, contributing 10 points to the Tigers' winning cause. Peta-Gaye Dowdie and Kwajahalein Butler finished third and fourth respectively in the 100-meter dash to give LSU 11 points. Walker and Dowdie finished second and fifth, respectively in the 200 meter dash for 12 points, and LaTarsha Stroman won the 400 meters for LSU. UCLA's third place finish in the nation bettered upon their ninth place performance at the 1996 NCAA Championships. The Bruins finished their season with a perfect dual-meet record of 10-0 and won their eighth Pac-10 title in 11 years. UCLA will be expected to contend for a national and Pac-10 title next year as only four Bruins graduated, Acuff, Malco, Kechris and Zoe Shaw. Acuff graduated having received First-Team GTE Academic All-America Team honors, with a 3.32 GPA in Biology. Coach Jeanette Bolden was named the 1997 Pac-10 Coach of the Year. This is Bolden's third Pac-10 Coach of the Year Award in her four years of coaching. ASUCLA Photography Freshman Seilala Sua is the 1997 Discus National Champion. Previous Daily Bruin Story Bolden heads into next year with visionof championship, June 6, 1996 Previous Daily Bruin Stories: Bolden heads into next year with visionof championship