Barton Women Dominate Field To Win Eighth Straight NJCAA Indoor Track & Field Title

Release by Mike Marzolf

Barton Women Dominate Field To Win Eighth Straight NJCAA Indoor Track & Field Title

The Barton County Community College women’s track and field team just simply took care of business. There were no fancy comebacks like the men’s team or holding off any up and coming contender like last year in the Indoor season when Barton held off Essex County (NJ). No, this year the Cougar women simply dominated the field at the NJCAA National Indoor Track and Field Championships in Charleston, Ill. on the campus of Eastern Illinois. Barton nearly doubled the 2nd place team as the Cougars wracked up 199.5 points during the 2-day event while runner-up Essex finished with an even 100. Cloud County was a distant 3rd with 68. The win was the 8th straight and the 16th overall Indoors for the Cougar women.

Highlights
The Cougars didn’t dominate to the extent they won every event they entered as they did at the Region VI meet - but at times it was close. Barton won every sprint event and added the middle distances as the Cougars brought home gold in the 60m, 200m, 400m, 600m, and 800m. Only a 2nd place effort in the 1000m kept the Cougar women from winning every running event they entered.

Simone Facey was the only double gold winner in individual events as the freshman from Jamaica showed she is ready to continue the long and successful tradition of Jamaica women sprinters at Barton. Facey won the 60m and 200m to join former Jamaican’s Veronica Campbell (2002) and Aleen Bailey (2001) as the only Cougars to double up the 60m and 200m at the NJCAA Indoor Championships. Facey ran a 7.32 to easily win the 60m, well ahead of Kerron Stewart of Essex, who ran a 7.59. In the 200m, Facey again beat Stewart with ease, winning in 23.80 to Stewart’s 24.17. Barton’s Tracy Ann Rowe took 3rd in 24.55 and Sophia Jackson was 5th in 25.10.

Juanita Broaddus gave Barton gold in the 400m, running a 55.34 to pace 3 Cougars among the Top 6. Last year during the NJCAA Indoor Meet, Broaddus took silver in the 60m and 200m to Essex’s Stewart but moved to the 400m this year, where she was captured the gold. Jackson was 5th in 56.90 while Veronia Patterson was 6th in 57.06.

Latosha Wallace was golden in the 600m run - an event Barton nearly swept. Wallace won in a time of 1:33.34, edging out Cloud County’s Patrica Mayers, who ran a 1:33.41. Barton’s Latoria Howard and Miriam Barnes took 3rd and 4th in 1:36.52 and 1:37.37. Those same 3 runners would score points in the 800m and 1000m as well. Barnes won the 800m - her 1st win ever - in a time of 2:17.64. Wallace was 2nd in 2:18.74. Howard took 2nd in the 1000m in 2:58.55 as the Cougars scored 94 points alone in running events 1000m and less.

Barton completed its near sweep of running events it entered with wins in the 60m hurdles and the 4x400m relay - giving the Cougars 7 wins the 8 events they had athletes entered on the track and 123 points on the track alone.

Keisha Brown won the 60m hurdles in a time of 8.56 with Rowe taking 3rd in 8.82 and Shaunette Davidson 6th in 8.98. Jackson, Barnes, Patterson and Wallace combined to win the 4x400m relay by nearly 8 full seconds. The quartet ran a 3:49 to earn the win.

It wasn’t as if the Cougars didn’t have a lot of success in the field events as well. Barton’s field event total of 76.5 points would have placed the Cougars 2nd by itself. Barton won only one of the field events but placed in the top 3 of every event entered and provided good depth as well in those events.

Davidson won the Multi Events with a score of 3414, well ahead of the runner up total of 3220 from Mesa’s (Ariz) Becky Brown. Shameka Speed placed 3rd for the Cougars with 3068. Davidson wasn’t as fortunate in the high jump - an event she has dominated as a Cougar the past two years. Last year she set NJCAA Meet records both Indoors and Outdoors on the way to a pair of NJCAA Championships. This year she struggled, clearing just 5-5.75 - well short of her record 6-0 jump last year - to take 4th. But teammate Portia Nash picked up some slack by taking 2nd at 5.7.75. The winning jump was 5-10.

The high jump was 1 of 2 runner-up efforts for Nash. She also took 2nd in the triple jump at 38-10.25 and was 5th in the long jump at 19-5.25. Keisha Brown took 2nd for Barton in the long jump with a leap of 19-9 and Toni Robinson was 8th in 18-3.75.

In the throwing events, Barton’s Susan King snagged silver in the shot put with an effort of 44-9.5 to finish 2nd. King took 6th in the weight throw at 46-5.5. Teammate Nikole Jackson was 3rd in the weight throw at 50-10.75 while Courtney Cason was 5th at 46-8.25.

Coach Lyles Lashley comments
NJCAA Title - Our women just went out and took care of business. We have a pretty good women’s team, perhaps the best we’ve had since I’ve been here. But you still have to get it done. Other teams won’t just roll over and let you win. You have to take it. Our women did that.

Simone Facey - It was good to see Simone get her double. She has some tremendous footstep to follow with our women sprinters from Jamaica. All Simone can do is be Simone. That’s pretty darn good right there.

Sprints and Middle Distance - We have some fast girls. We knew we would do very well in the sprints and middle distances. We almost swept them, which would have been a very tough task. It was nice to see Miriam (Barnes) have 1st win of her life come at the NJCAA Championships. But all of the girls, Latosha, Tracy, Juanita, Sophia, Veronia, Latoria - all of them did a very good job.

Results
Full results can be found at the Barton County athletic website at www.bartonccc.edu/sports <http://www.bartonccc.edu/sports>

Next
Indoor Season complete
March 17 - Emporia State Invitational (start of 2005 Outdoor season at Emporia, Kansas)
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Check out Barton County Track Online at www.bartonccc.edu/sports