On Saturday, April 12, Cox Stadium welcomed thousands of track and field athletes who competed at the 2008 Johnny Mathis Invitational under an unusually warm San Francisco weather.
A leg injury affecting Obiamaka Eke, some good performances and greatly improved technical conditions were some of the more memorable moments of the outdoor meet which actually started on Friday afternoon with the hammer throw event.
SF State student Sheila Cleland took seventh place throwing the hammer at 40.19 meters.
On Saturday morning Eke ran the 100-meter hurdles in 14.82 seconds ranking fourth, but this event was the last race she would finish in the meet. Eke collapsed during her 400-meter hurdles, her leg visibly hurt. She suffered from a hamstring injury she said had been following her since earlier in the meet.
“It aggravated what was a minor injury,” coach Terry Burke said.
Eke said she will keep practicing regularly despite her left thigh being maintained with a bandage. “I’ll get through it. I’ll be fine.”
Her injury prevented her from competing at the 4x400 meter relay. This added to the misfortune of the Gator relay team who did not run the 4x100 earlier in the day.
“Things are not lining up today,” Burke said.
There were some Gator bright spots. Anna Stetkevich and Kristen Para had the top performances of the day with a long jump of 5.08 meters, Stetkevich took second place after Gator Kristen Para who had a jump of 5.16 meters. Gator Kendra Rimbach followed in fifth place with a jump of 4.86 meters.
“Anna’s place is good, not her time,” Burke said. “But she did a solid 200 [meter dash].”
Stetkevich placed sixth out of 35 runners with a time of 25.48 seconds, 1.51 seconds behind the winner.
Sophomore Maria Nelson also ran the 200-meter dash finishing 10th, with a time of 25.90.
In the long distance 5000-meter run, Shannon Weston ran 19:29.49 minutes and Vanesa Zuzuarregui 19:59.22, respectively ranking 10th and 13th out of 31.
The throwing events saw two Gators, junior Sheila Cleland and freshman Marisa Garza respectively take the 10th and fourth place in the discus event.
The javelin event was marked by a performance from Shawna Gildea who ranked first out of 18 with a throw at 39.82 meters, followed by Stetkevich in seventh place and Cleland in ninth place.
“I didn’t do too well at the discus,” Cleland said about her 32.86-meter throw explaining that her best performances usually come close to 39 meters.
Overall, Burke regarded the performances as decent, but was visibly satisfied with the organization of the meet.
“We had far more entries than expected for this meet and more than enough help [from officials] today,” Burke said. “The timing was good, there was no delay.”
The Gator Preview on March 1 and its technical shortcomings that led to delays and timing errors in races now seem to be ancient history.
