St. John's University Athletics
Track And Field Heads To The ECAC Championships This Weekend
5/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track and Field
May 11, 2006
QUEENS, N.Y. - The St. John's track and field team will travel to Princeton, N.J., this weekend to compete for the ECAC Championships. Nine Red Storm members will compete against some of the best athletes in the eastern United States.
BIG EAST Champion Blessing Egwu (Queens, N.Y.) will participate in the hammer throw and the shot put. Egwu captured her second straight conference title in the hammer throw and took home the bronze medal in the shot put last weekend. Egwu's best performance in the hammer was at the Penn Relays when she recorded a mark of 59.93 meters. Meanwhile in the shot put, she hurled the weight 14.20 meters at the Nigerian national championships. This spring, Egwu also earned a spot on the Nigerian national team.
Grace Zollman (Joseph, Ore.) will participate in the javelin throw. She registered a throw of 46.16 meters (151' 5 ¼") at the Sea Ray Relays in April and is coming off a fourth place finish at the BIG EAST Championships. Meanwhile, Kesheila Reid (St. Ann, Jamaica) will compete in the discus throw. She posted a throw of 46.32 meters at the Metropolitan Championships in April and took seventh last weekend at the conference championships.
On the track, Phobay Kutu-Akoi (Silver Spring, Md.) will compete in the 100 meter dash. She sprinted her way to a 12.13 second performance at the Sea Ray Relays. Meanwhile, Tarashon Broomes (Fair Lawn, N.J) and Thalene King (Manchestar, Jamaica) will each participate in the 400 meter dash. Broomes clocked in at 56.45 while King crossed the line in 54.97 seconds. Both performances were accomplished last weekend at the BIG EAST Championships.
The Red Storm will also be running in two relays, the 4x100 meter and the 4x400 meter races. The 4x100 meter relay team recorded a performance of 47.47 last weekend. This weekend's 4x100 meter squad includes King, Jennifer Lewis (Upper Darby, Pa.), Paula Rennalls (St. Catherine, Jamaica) and Kutu-Akoi. Meanwhile, the 4x400m relay team ran their best outdoor performance in 3:40.51 last weekend. The ECAC 4x400m squad will include Kutu-Akoi, King, Nerissa Pelle (St. John's, Antigua) and Lewis.
This weekend is commencement for St. John's University, which means some Red Storm members will miss the ECAC Championships in order to participate in the graduation ceremonies.
"Despite not running a number of our seniors, I know that we can score enough points to reach the top 10," said head coach Jim Hurt. "We have a number of individuals who will score a high number of points and our relay teams could sneak in and score a few. I am very proud of this year's team as they have proven to be great competitors each week. I look forward to testing ourselves against the best in the eastern United States this weekend at Princeton."
The first event of the competition will be the discus throw, which is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Friday.
-Red Storm-
Players Mentioned
