TicketsFeb. 1, 2011
By Dave Malaska
GoBEARCATS.com
Cincinnati's women's track team has just barely started the indoor season, but it's already clear there is a tone to the 2010 campaign. Just four meets in, a total of six school records have already fallen this season, capped by last weekend's rewriting of the UC annals. Between the Rod McCravy Invitational in Lexington and the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nev., five Cincinnati records fell to current Bearcats. Senior speedster Natasha Burse posted the new UC standard in the 200-meter dash at the McCravy, while junior Kathy Klump set a new 800-meter run mark and helped the Bearcat 4x400 relay team to another record, and freshman thrower Frida Akerstrom erased the best thrower in the program's history from the top spot in the shot put.
Meanwhile, across the continent, Mackenzie Fields was dashing out another name, adding hers to the top height in UC's pole vaulting annals.
The fact that so many records - some which have survived for years, all set by an impressive list of former Bearcats - have fallen of late has been remarkable.
That is, until you take a closer look. And that's when a day when five records fall looks almost pedestrian in context. And that's when you get a sense of the caliber of athletes UC head coach Susan Seaton has on her roster.
Burse, it should be noted, is already an old hat at this record-breaking thing. Back on Dec. 10, with the Bearcats participating at the Early Bird Invitational, she broke her first record of the season. Her time in the 60-meter dash (7.48) just edged former UC standout Charlyn Ray's 7.54, which had stood for almost decade. But Ray probably knew it was coming. Burse already owned the other nine spots in UC's top-10 list. All that was left was No. 1.
Last weekend, Burse erased another Ray record with her 200-meter time of 24.28, just one one-hundredth of a second faster than Ray, but almost a third of a second faster than she had ever run.
Klump, too, is no stranger to records. She already owned both the 800-meter indoor and outdoor records, setting new standards last season. The junior from Indiana improved on her indoor 2:12-flat mark at the McCravy, though, shaving another 1.93 off the UC record. Already a member of the record-holding 4x800 relay team (3:45.03, set last year), she helped grabbed a share of the 4x400 title last weekend with teammates Vanessa Hardin, Shanay Portis and Aricka Rhodes. They did it with a blazing time of 3:44.30.
Fields, though only a junior, has been flirting with the Bearcat record since her freshman year. The Cincinnati native held the third spot on both the indoor and outdoor pole vaulting lists until grabbing second place on the indoor record roster at Akron on Jan. 7.
At Reno, though, competing against elite company, she vaulted over former Bearcat Brittany Klima's three-year-old record, becoming the first Cincinnati women's athlete to clear 4.10 meters. That topped Klima's record by less than an inch, but improved her personal best by almost a half foot.
And then there's Akerstrom, the Bearcat who has come the farthest, literally. The freshman from Sweden erased the legendary Jo Young from the Bearcats' top spot in the shot put. Young had owned the top seven spots on the UC shot put performance list. Her top mark, 48-9 ½ feet, set in 2005, was almost three feet further than any Bearcat had ever registered.
All Akerstrom did, in just her fourth meet as a Bearcat, was throw it about an inch further.
Sometimes, it's easy to lionize record-holders. They get the headlines; they get the accolades - until someone else comes along and takes the record away from them.
But in some cases, like when long-standing or simply dominant marks are erased in a manner that the current crop of Bearcats have done it... it seems the new records will stand forever.
Or, at least, until this group sets new ones themselves.