April 2, 2014
San José, Calif. - In its second competition of the year, the San José State Women's Track and Field team returns to Cox Stadium, on the campus of San Francisco State, to compete in the Gators' annual Distance Carnival.
The two-day meet features distance events on Friday, April 4 and sprints on Saturday, April 5. The Spartans will be competing in three events on Friday, the 1,500m, 5,000m and 3,000m Steeplechase.
In the 1,500m, in which the first of eight heats begin at 10:25 a.m., San José State has five student athletes competing; Marissa Buckley and Jenay Jauregui are in the seventh heat while Breanna Garcia, Allison Kimura and Nina Sassano run in the eighth heat.
Rebecca Garcia and Lalida Maokhamphiou will race in the first of two Steeplechase heats. They are scheduled to toe the line at 11:55 a.m.
"After the positive results at the Johnny Mathis (Invitational, March 22), it will be exciting to see both Rebecca and Lalida against the next level of competition in the Steeplechase," assistant coach Brad Wick said.
The last event of the day for the Spartans is the 5,000m. Aylin Mejia will run in the second of four heats. Melaine Fujiwara and Karina Nunes are in the fourth heat. The event is scheduled to begin at 2:05 p.m.
"It's been a few years since Aylin has run this distance on the track," Wick said. "For Melanie and Karina it will be the first time on the track at 5,000 meters, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they do."
On Saturday the event turns to shorter distances, including the sprints.
Five Spartans will be competing in the 100m, which is divided into seven heats.
Taylor Griffin and Madiha Raza are entered in the third heat. Raven Adams in the sixth and Joetta Hall and Madison Fowler will run in the seventh heat. First heat of the 100m is scheduled for 1:55 p.m.
In the final event for San José State, Griffin and Raza will run the 200m. There are nine heats beginning at 3:05 p.m. Griffin is scheduled in heat two and Raza in heat five.
For all our athletes this is a big meet," assistant coach Kelley Watson said. "There are a lot of Division I programs who are competing at Stanford this weekend and they can't get all there athletes into that meet. The "overflow" comes to (the San Francisco State Distance Carnival) so it will be our first major test as a team. We'll really see where we are and we will learn where our training is at against high level Division I programs."
Fans who cannot attend the meet can follow the action @ http://redcaptiming.com/2014/sfdistance/.