Sophomore Juli Accurso won the 5,000-meter race at the prestigious FloTrack Husky Classic on Friday in Seattle. With a time of 16 minutes, 5.59 seconds, she was ahead of her nearest follower by six seconds and shattered the Ohio school record by almost 17 seconds.
“It was a little nerve-wracking standing on the starting line next to some of the best competition in the nation,” said Accurso. “I was like, ‘Wow, now I’m one of these girls I used to look up to and still look up to.’ ”
While Accurso was on the West Coast, her teammates gave solid marks at the Hoosier Hills Invitational in Bloomington, Ind.
Hope McCarty finished fourth and ran a personal best of 2 minutes, 16.76 seconds in the 800-meter race, in which teammate Brittany Tyree joined her in the top five.
A trio of Bobcats placed in the top nine for the 3,000-meter invitational with Melissa Thompson taking fourth at 10 minutes, 4.35 seconds, Emily Pifer running a season-best and taking seventh place and Morgan Reichert running a personal best and finishing ninth.
Alexis Geiger and Olivia Vitou were seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 60-meter hurdles.
Three Bobcats finished in the top nine of the weight toss, with Kristen Mason finishing fifth with a throw of 16.08 meters, Brianna Allen placing sixth with a career-best throw and Donyelle Brown taking ninth.
“We’re going to work on the shot put a lot this week. It’s a learning process, and we have a young team with a couple of freshmen,” throws coach Nick Pero said. “It’s just taking one week at a time and keep plugging away at it. We’ll get it right sooner or later.”
There is still time to make improvements at the OSU Tune-up this weekend in Columbus before the Mid-American Conference Championships in Akron the next weekend.
“It seems like people are headed the right way and we need to just keep that trend going and hope that we avoid sickness and injuries these last couple of weeks,” distance coach Mitch Bentley said. “There is also a little bit of luck involved when it gets down to the wire.”
nb155607@ohiou.edu
