Women’s track keeps on rolling

The USF women’s track and field team traveled to Boston this weekend and performed well in the Reebok Invitational Tournament, finishing second overall in the competition.

Several key individual performances led the Bulls to a record six first-place finishes out of 17 events.

“It was a great team effort. The girls really stepped up and did a great job,” coach Warren Bye said.

The Bulls have consistently competed at every meet, capturing first and second place finishes not only from seniors such as Taylar Stallings and Courtney LaCroix, but also from freshmen such as Denise Von Eynatten and Loutisha Hall.

“Our field events are pretty strong, our running events are getting stronger,” Coach Bye said.

Senior Taylar Stallings won first place in shot put and weight throw, measuring 14.08 meters and 16.36 meters, respectively.

Freshman Lou’Tisha Hall placed first in the high jump, breaking the school record in the process. Senior Courtney LaCroix finished second in the high jump.

Freshman Denise Von Eynatten placed first with a 4.13-meter mark in the pole vault competition. This is Von Eynatten’s third consecutive first-place finish this year in pole vault. She also set the all-time school record Friday.

Beki Finn and Dana Webb finished second in the pole vault.

Rosalyn Woodberry won the triple jump competition of 11.67 meters and second place in the long jump of 5.43 meters.

Stacia Smith qualified for the Big East Championships after placing first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 7.27 seconds.

Yvana Hepburn placed second in the 55-meter hurdles.

Other solid performances came from Ashley Grigsby and Rachel Etienne, who finished fourth and fifth respectively in the 500-meter dash and Maressa Pinzini, who finished fourth in the 1000-meter run.

The track and field team has one more meet before the conference championships in February.

“We’ll go back into training pretty hard this week and we’ll start lightening up our workouts and start resting the girls a little bit more as we get ready for the Big East Championships,” Bye said.

The team will travel to New York for the New Balance Invitational in two weeks.