Bulls inconsistent in Gainesville

The USF track and field teams turned out some good performances this weekend at the Florida Relays in Gainesville, but not as many as USF coach Greg Thiel would have liked.

“At the home meet we need to see more consistency,” Thiel said.

Despite not producing as many successes as Thiel would have liked, he said there were some events in which USF did excel. One of those events was the women’s discus, where Dayana Octavien won the event with a throw of 177-7. On the men’s side, Jimmy Baxter won the high jump for the third time this season with a mark of 7-feet-2.5 inches.

“We had some other kids running better and doing better, so we were pretty happy with the men’s side,” Thiel said.

The women’s side, which traditionally has more success, did not perform to Thiel’s expectations, but what lacked in the number of accomplishments was made up for in the quality of the ones that were substantial.

“(We did) not (have) as many good performances as we would like on the women’s side, but we still had some pretty strong (ones),”Thiel said.

Besides Octavien, Chandra Brewer placed fourth in shot put, and Christa Benton, who was running at Stanford, finished four seconds shy of a national qualifying mark in the 10,000 meters.

“She just missed qualifying for nationals by four seconds so it was kind of bittersweet,” Thiel said.