The men and women's track and field team battled through the sweltering Texas heat over the weekend to compete against some of the best teams in the country.
The Bulls traveled to the Lone Star State to compete in the 84th Annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. The remainder of the squad participated at the Robert Morris Bennie Benson Memorial Invitational.
Buffalo had a huge weekend at the throws. Junior thrower Rob Golabek continued to shine for the Bulls, as he placed first in the men's shot put. His throw of 62-7.75 (19.09m) broke his own school record and put him more than a foot over the second-place finisher from Arizona, Bozidar Antunovic.
The men's head coach, Perry Jenkins, was more than impressed with Golabek's performance.
"Today, Rob Golabek won the shot put," Jenkins said. "That was huge. The young man was eighth indoors at NCAA. To come out here and win the shot put at Texas Relays says a lot about [Golabek] and his performance."
The thrower's circle proved to be successful for junior thrower Becky O'Brien, as well. She threw a season best 53-9 (16.38m) to finish fifth in the women's shot put, surpassing her record by four feet.
Senior Russell Cameron finished in fourth place in the 400-meter run and eighth place in the 110-meter hurdles. Freshman hurdler Donna Jeanty ran a season-best in the 400-meter hurdles at 1:01.11, finishing in 18th place.
Jenkins felt this meet was important to the track and field program at UB and that it means a lot for its student athletes to be competing at this level.
"It's a big plus," Jenkins said. "It'll get us ready for our next big meet – the Penn Relays [are] in a month and after that we get ready for conference. I think [the meet] was a learning process that they had a chance to get out here to compete at a high-caliber level and to learn from it."
The rest of the team was doing work in Western Pennsylvania and won 11 events at the Robert Morris Invitational.
Sophomore throwers Evan Palmer and Erin Miller came out on top in the hammer throw and discus. Palmer won both the hammer throw at 58.15m and the discus at 48.07m. Miller placed first in the women's discus with 42.62m and finished second in the hammer throw with 49.15m.
The Bulls didn't turn in any particularly fast times due to the slight breeze on the track, but still managed to pull out first-place finishes in several events.
Weather has been a factor in both the team's training and competition. Women's head coach Vicki Mitchell looks optimistic about future performances now that spring has finally arrived.
"This is the first day that it has been warm," Mitchell said. "We were outside in workouts with snow on Tuesday. Once our sprinters, throwers, and jumpers can start to get outside and get onto the 400-meter track and get used to running on that – really the only opportunity they've had is at Wakefield Forest [N.C.] and at Ohio. From this point forward, it's going to have a big impact on our performances."
The competition continues next weekend for both squads as they will be heading to
Lewisburg, Pa. to compete at the Bucknell Bison Outdoor Classic. Events kick off at 11 a.m. on both days.
Email: sports@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Ryan Hagen | UB Athletics
Photo: Paul Hokanson / UB Athletics
