It’s been a season of highs and lows, but the women’s track and field team is ready to end the season on a high note.
Under the guidance of new head coach Jim Stintzi, the Badgers opened the 2005 indoor season in style, winning all 15 events at the Badger Track Classic. A week later, the Badgers continued to meet lofty expectations by winning three events at the Wisconsin Elite Invitational and two at the University of Northern Iowa Invitational.
Sophomore jumper Michelle Bellford finally broke the ice for the University of Wisconsin in February when she erased the school record in the triple jump at the Tyson Invitational. Bellford’s jump, 41 feet 2 inches, eclipsed the nine-year-old record by six inches.
Two more UW records were broken at the 2005 Big Ten Indoor Championships. Senior Courtney Bauer shattered the 20-pound weight throw by three feet with a lifetime best of 57 feet 2 3/4 inches. Sophomore Shuntia Lucas bested the 200-meter record by 12 hundredths of a second with a time of 24.3 seconds.
Despite the record-setting efforts from Bauer and Lucas, the Badgers were not able to outlast Big Ten competition. Wisconsin finished the conference championship in eighth, the lowest indoor finish in school history. The Badgers scored just 50 points — 13 points shy of their seventh-place finish in 2004.
It was a disappointing finish, but the Badgers were able to quickly regain focus. After regrouping for a week, UW opened the outdoor season with multiple event wins in Arizona at the Baldy Castillo Invitational.
Bellford once again proved her dominance in the jumps by winning the long jump and triple jump. Following Bellford’s lead, junior Theresa Giorno won the high jump, clearing the bar at 5 feet 7 inches.
From Arizona, the Badgers headed to Palo Alto to compete at the Stanford Invitational. At the invite, sophomore Katrina Rundhaug automatically qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 10,000 meters by finishing 10th with a time of 33 minutes 45.03 seconds.
The next big meet was held down south at the University of Tennessee. In Knoxville, the Badgers benefited from some southern hospitality, winning three events in two separate invites.
At the Gatorade Invitational, Rundhaug continued to dominate the distance events by claiming the 3,000 meters in nine minutes 49.02 seconds. Giorno also continued to leap over the competition, adding another victory in the high jump.
A week after the Gatorade Invitational, the quartet of Rundhaug, Amanda Ganser, Linsey Blaisdell and ‘A Havahla Haynes won the 4×1500-meter relay at the Sea Ray Relays.
Wisconsin continued their relay win streak at the Northern Iowa Twilight by winning the 4×100-meter relay. The team of Bellford, Lucas, Lisa Oikarinen and Melissa Talbot outlasted the field by .11 seconds and finished with a time of 47.80.
After helping her team win the relay, Lucas lit up the field in the 100-meter dash, breaking the 12-second mark and winning the event by three-tenths of a second.
As the season began to wind down, the Badgers were able to qualify one more athlete for the NCAA Outdoor Championships. At the Drake Relays, Talbot finished second in the heptathlon with 5,275 points, automatically qualifying her for the championship meet. Her point total was the second-highest ever recorded by a UW athlete.
Talbot and the rest of Stintzi’s squad will conclude the regular track and field season Saturday at the Wisconsin Twilight. The Twilight will be the last home meet for seniors Courtney Bauer, Andrea Lopez, Christina Taylor and Yael Peled. All four seniors specialize in the field events.
Taylor and Peled both excel in the jumps, while Lopez is UW’s top pole-vaulter and Bauer is a UW record-holder in the throws.
Following the Twilight, the Badgers will head to Columbus, Ohio, to compete in the Big Ten Championships. Last year, the Badger’s finished ninth. This season, Wisconsin has its sights set on a solid 5th-place finish.
“Within the Big Ten, there’s a little bit of a separation in women’s track,” assistant coach Elizabeth Zimney said. “You’ve got a group like first through fourth place, which are pretty solid. To be honest with you, I don’t think we can crack that. Fifth through eighth is pretty close. I mean, we’re talking within 10 to 15 points. We would definitely much rather be fifth or sixth than eighth … so that’s something that we will pose to team as, hey, you know what, we didn’t pull it off indoors. We need to step up and we need to get this done.”
The NCAA Outdoor Championships concludes the outdoor season. The national championship will be held June 8-11 in Sacramento, Calif. So far, the Badgers have eight athletes lined up to compete at the NCAA Midwest Regionals, all in hopes of advancing to the national championships.
Over the course of the season, Stintzi has taken a young team and turned them into a mature squad with the potential to score respectively at the national level.
“Coach Stintzi does a great job,” Zimney said. “His experience and leadership qualities are fabulous. And I think the team relies upon those skills and knows that they’re going to get the right direction from him.”
