UW Invitational
Dates: Friday-Saturday, Jan. 25-26
Time: 4 p.m. / 10 a.m. (PDT)
Location: Dempsey Indoor - Seattle, Wash.
Meet Info // Meet Schedule // Live Results // Live Stream ($)

Notes (PDF)

IRVINE, Calif. - The UC Irvine women's indoor track & field team will make its way to Seattle this weekend for the UW Invitational, Jan. 25-26. The two-day meet will be held at Dempsey Indoor, which is also the site of the MPSF Championships in February.
 
Competition gets underway with the 60m hurdle prelims at 4 p.m. on Friday, while the long jump kicks off Saturday's action at 10 a.m. The Anteaters have 11 athletes entered in nine different events - Elizabeth Akindele (SP), Hope Bushnell (60m, 200m), Barbara Coward (WT), Natalie Koppel (60m, LJ), Zani Meaders (400m, 4x400), Alison Meegan (WT), Lorraine Nance (TJ), Mychal Robinson (60m, 60H, 4x400), Julia Sambvani (60H, 4x400), Mikayla Scott (200m, 400m, 4x400) and Brianna Villanueva (WT).
 
STORYLINES
• Three of UCI's top-four marks in the weight throw were established last Friday at the Lumberjack Team Challenge.
• Senior Barbara Coward led the way with a school-record 57-05.75. 
• Coward topped the three-year old standard by over a foot and improved her personal best by 2 feet, 5.5 inches.
• Junior Brianna Villanueva and senior Alison Meegan added lifetime-bests of 52-11 and 51-09.75, respectively.
• Villanueva now ranks third in program history, while Meegan is fourth.
• Coward, Villanueva and Meegan are three of only four Anteaters to surpass 50 feet in the weight throw.
• In her collegiate debut, freshman Lorraine Nance cracked UC Irvine's top-three in the triple jump at 38-01.25.
• Junior Tatyana Hamlett also had a personal-best 37-01, which puts her at No. 7 on the all-time charts.
• Sophomore Natalie Koppel entered the school's top-10 in the long jump with a leap of 17-11.75.
• Senior Mychal Robinson, who was already third in program history in the 60H, had a PR 8.61 in the season opener.
• Senior Hope Bushnell established UC Irvine's second-fastest 60m (7.57) and 200m (24.50) times in 2018.
• Senior Julia Sambvani is also seventh on UCI's all-time charts with marks of 7.83 in the 60m and 25.56 in the 200m.
• Sophomore Mikayla Scott is among the Anteaters' top-five in the 200m and 400m.
• Senior Elizabeth Akindele has put herself on the map in the shot put where she is third in school history (45-10.5).
 
MEET REWIND - 2018 UW INVITATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
• Hope Bushnell (12th) and Mikayla Scott (18th) posted top-20 finishes in a 200m field of 103 athletes.
• Brianna Villanueva established a then personal-best 49-03.5 in the weight throw.
• Mychal Robinson advanced out of the 60H qualifying round before placing 16th in the prelims.
• Mikayla Scott ran a then lifetime-best 57.04 to come in 19th in the 400m.
 
QUOTABLES
Head coach Jeff Perkins on last week's season opener:
"With the start of a new indoor season, we were looking to dust some rust off with us getting into competing again. The day started off a little rough for us, but we got our focus back and it ended with a nice school record out of Barbara. It's never a bad day when you are able to come home with a new school record."
 
UP NEXT
UC Irvine will have a week off from competition before traveling to Albuquerque, N.M., for the Don Kirby Invitational, Feb. 8-9.