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St. Thomas hosted the Tommie Twilight women’s track and field meet Wednesday evening. While the night’s events were not scored, coach Joe Sweeney said the women’s team looked good.
“They’re doing great,” Sweeney said. “We had nice races in the hurdles and dash prelims. We had a little bit of a tailwind and a warm day, and that’s always positive for sprints.”
Senior Melissa Kuebler took first in the 100-meter hurdle preliminaries but hoped for a better start in the finals.
“I was kinda sitting there, normally I like to be the first one out of the block,” Kuebler said. “Hopefully that will change.”
Sweeney said, “The main thing we’re focusing on for [Kuebler] is just to run fast. She’s got a bit of a tailwind and a nice night.”
Sweeney also has high hopes for Kuebler in the coming weeks.
“She’s ranked 20th in the nation. It’d be nice to drop it down a little bit,” Sweeney said. “Maybe get in the top 15 ranking in the nation.”
Junior Amy Maas competed in the shot put and said she threw her personal best since competing in the Point Loma Nazarene Invite in San Diego in March. But she thinks she could do even better.
“Conference is next weekend,” Maas said. “We have a meet this Friday so hopefully I can fix everything this weekend and then [get a] conference personal best, get a further distance.”
Senior Raynee DeGrio also had a good night, Sweeney said.
“[She] just ran a really nice 3,000 steeplechase race,” Sweeney said. “That sets her up well going into the conference meet.”
DeGrio said, “It was definitely an improvement on my last couple races. I was about 14 seconds faster than what I had run previously in the season. I’ve been hurt the past couple weeks so it’s just nice to be out competing and finally have a decent result that I’m happy with. “
DeGrio said she was happy to do well among conference competitors.
“I’ll be seeing them next week,” DeGrio said. “So it was nice to have a good race against them, just to kind of feel out the field a little bit for next Saturday.”
As the women’s track and field team prepares for the upcoming conference meet, Maas said she plans to continue working hard.
“Practicing, listening to my coach, trying to figure out little things to tweak to make it all better,” she said.
Carly Samuelson can be reached at samu5380@stthomas.edu.