In the first outdoor meet of the season for most of the Arizona track and field team, the Wildcats set great expectations for the rest of the season.

The women placed first in the Jim Click Shootout, earning 155 points to outscore second-place Minnesota’s 136 points at Drachman Stadium.

In the first running event of the day, sophomore Hannah Moen set a new personal record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. It was a fight from the beginning with Moen being chased by Kansas State’s Martina Tresch the whole race. In the final 100m, Moen added enough distance to come in first with a time of 10:28.20.

“”I get nervous with people around me, but she helped me keep the pace,”” Moen said of Tresch.

After the steeplechase, the women’s team continued its success.

In the 4x100m relay, the women took second to California, but the runners were still pleased with their finish.

“”All of our handoffs went well,”” said junior LaTisha Holden. “”We’ve been practicing for about two weeks, and it paid off.””

Holden was the last leg of the 4x100m and missed first by .08 of a second.

“”The girl from Cal I was head to head with was really quick, so it was cool that I was right with her. That alone lets me know where I am right now,”” Holden said.

Holden also came in second in the women’s 100m hurdles, fourth in the women’s 100m and led off the “”B”” team for the women’s 4x400m that came in sixth.

Senior Christina Rodgers had a dominating day in the women’s 800m and on the “”A”” team of the women’s 4x400m. In the 800m, she commanded the race from the beginning and finished first with a time of 2:06.72.

“”At the end it got harder to finish, but the pressure (from Cal) helped,”” Rodgers said. “”This race felt a little bit harder than previous years, but I think it’s just because I have to get used to running outdoors.””

Rodgers came back later that day to open a huge lead for the women’s 4x400m that translated into a six-second difference between first and second.

Another top finisher for the women was sophomore Georganne Moline, who finished first in the women’s 400m hurdles with a time of 59.80. She’s the first UA athlete to accomplish this since 2003 and has added her name to the record books as the eighth fastest time.

Redshirt junior Deanna Sullivan came in second in the women’s 400m with a time of 54.26. Freshman Brigetta Barrett went on to win the women’s high jump after singing a moving rendition of the national anthem. 

Arizona swept the women’s shot put with freshmen Julie Labonte and Alyssa Hasslen taking first and second respectively, and senior Kelsey Jessup coming in third. Labonte is now the third all-time best thrower in Arizona history with her throw of 55 feet, 2 1/4 inches. Hasslen also took second in the women’s discus.

Men place fifth out of five

While the men came in fifth place overall, they still had a number of notable individual performances.

In the 1500m, redshirt sophomore Abdi Hassan showed that he is a master of his race. Hassan was forced to race in a pair of sprinter spikes that were a size too large for him after he couldn’t find his usual spikes — in the end it didn’t matter.

Hassan came in first with a time of 3:47.

“”When you’re at home competing, you don’t want to lose,”” Hassan said. “”You have that extra motivation. You’re not going to let someone beat you on your home court.””

In the men’s hammer throw, sophomore Tomaz Bogovic came in first with a throw of 205 feet, 8 inches, and redshirt junior Korion Morris won the men’s shot put with his second throw of the day, a distance of 59 feet, 6 3/4 inches. Morris also came in second in the men’s discus.

Freshman Edgar Rivera-Morales came in third in the men’s high jump, paying tribute to his older brother, Luis Rivera-Morales, who graduated after the fall semester.

Even though the men didn’t score as many points as they would have liked, head coach Fred Harvey still feels that they did as well as they could.

“”We didn’t have a lot of guys in areas where we could have scored points, but the way they did gives us hope in what we’re going to do at the Pac-10 and NCAA meets,”” he said.