Another week, another meet and another school record broken.
Last week at the University of Washington Invitational, Pau Tonnesen broke the UA school record for a heptathlon score.
This weekend, Arizona men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled to New York City to compete in the Armory Track Invitational, where Sage Watson began her 2016 indoor season by breaking an Arizona record in the 500-meter race.
Not only did Watson come in first place, but she broke the program record with a time of 1:10.52. The previous record held by Ruth Waithera-Nganga was a time of 1:11.15 in 1984.
Watson’s time from this past weekend currently stands as the best collegiate time in the country.
Watson will aim to break her own record this season, as she believes she is capable of running the 500 faster.
“It wasn’t quite the time I wanted to get,” Watson said in a press release. “I was aiming for 1:09, but it is my first ever 500 so I wanted to just go out there and trust coach Harvey. I am excited to know that is Arizona’s fastest time — I feel honored to have done that.”
While Watson was the highlight of the weekend, the Wildcats had an impressive meet and had many good individual performances that head coach Fred Harvey was happy with.
“We came out here with a purpose this weekend,” Harvey said in a press release. “We wanted to have a great experience and be able to compete at the highest level that we possibly can, and we were able to accomplish that with all of those top performances this weekend.”
The Wildcats that competed in the women’s 200-meter included Tatum Waggoner, Gia Trevisan and Jasper Gray.
Waggoner qualified for the finals with a time of 24.25 seconds. In the finals, Waggoner came in fifth place with a mark of 24.36 seconds.
Trevisan had a mark of 25.07 seconds, which was a new personal record for her. Gray ran a time of 25.32 seconds.
Collins Kibet competed in the men’s 800-meter race while Lizzie Smith competed in the women’s 800-meter race.
Kibet came in second place overall, running a time of 1:48.85.
Smith placed in third overall by running a time of 2:08.36, a new personal record for her.
Traci Hicks had a strong performance at the invitational as well. Hicks would break her personal record of 8.45 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles. She broke her personal record in the preliminaries with a time of 8.44 seconds,and then set a new personal record in the semifinals with a time of 8.43 seconds.
The Arizona track team will next split up with one squad going to Seattle to compete in the Husky Invitational.The other half of the team will travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the Don Kirby Invitational. Both meets begin on Feb. 12.
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