Around Campus

Texas Women’s Track and Field Earns 11th NCAA Team Title with Indoor Championship and Prepares to Defend its 2005 NCAA Outdoor Crown

Eleven on 11.

On Saturday, March 11th, the Texas women’s track and field team earned the 11th national championship in the program history when head coach Bev Kearney’s Longhorns posted a runaway victory at the NCAA Indoor Championships held at the University of Arkansas’ Randal Tyson Center.

Texas claimed the NCAA team title with 51 points, while Stanford took a distant second with 36 points. Kearney has now led the Texas squad to six NCAA Championships (three indoor, three outdoor) since 1998.

Notably, the Longhorns sit atop the NCAA track and field world with back-to-back NCAA track championships after claiming the 2005 NCAA outdoor title last June in Sacramento, Calif., which makes UT the team to beat this upcoming outdoor season.

At the NCAA indoor championship, Texas junior All-American and sprint and jumping phenom Marshevet Hooker led the way, winning two NCAA titles (long jump, 60-meter dash) while placing fourth at 200 meters. She has now won a total of four NCAA titles in her Longhorn career (two outdoor, two indoor). Hooker (San Antonio, Texas) accounted for an impressive 25 points of UT’s total of 51. In the 60-meter dash, she had a personal-best time of 7.197, edging UNLV’s Ashley Owens by three one-thousandths of a second. In the long jump, Hooker leapt to a personal-best mark of 22-00.25 (6.71m) - the sixth-highest long jump mark in the world to date in 2006.

Junior All-American Michelle Carter (Dallas, Texas) won a third NCAA title for the Horns and the first of her Longhorn career when she placed first in the shot put, winning the event with a personal-best toss of 60-10.75 (18.56m). She topped her own UT record mark of 58-7.25 set one year ago at the 2005 NCAA Championships, and became Texas’ first NCAA indoor shot put champion since 1994.

Hooker’s younger sister, freshman Destinee Hooker also made her mark at the NCAAs with a third-place finish in the high jump (6-2 1/4). Hooker got a jump start on her collegiate career, graduating early from high school in December of 2005 before beginning her collegiate career in January. She will be a dual-sport athlete in track and field and volleyball.

The Horns closed out the meet in fine fashion when their 4X400-meter relay squad added six points by placing third in the event. Senior Sheretta Jones (Houston, Texas) ran the leadoff leg, followed by freshman Alexandria Anderson (Chicago, Ill.), senior LaTashia Kerr (Houston, Texas) and senior Melaine Walker (Kingston, Jamaica) who anchored the relay to a final time of 3:30.76.

The outdoor track and field season commenced in March, and the Longhorns will host three important competitions this spring at home in the Mike A. Myers Stadium on the UT campus. Myers Stadium is located at the corner of Clyde Littlefield Drive and Red River.

First up will be the 79th running of the prestigious Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, set for Wednesday, April 5 through Saturday, April 8 at Myers Stadium. The Texas Relays is an annual gathering of the nation’s top professional, collegiate and high school men’s and women’s track and field athletes. The Relays are one of the biggest sporting and social events each year in Austin, and is always a sellout on the final day of competition. For more information on the Texas Relays (tickets, parking, events) and for the inaugural Urban Music Festival which will be held on April 8 at Auditorium Shores in conjunction with the Relays, go to www.TexasSports.com and click on the “79th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays” banner.

In addition, Texas also hosts the Longhorn Invitational (Saturday, April 22) and the two-day NCAA Regional Championships (Friday-Saturday, May 26-27) which will determine the participants for the 2006 NCAA national meet in June – a title the Longhorns look to defend.