Cougars break team records at finals
Mar. 15, 2010 - Regina Leader-Post
By Ian Hamilton
The members of the University of Regina Cougars men's track and field team collectively set a personal best at the 2010 CIS championships.
The Cougars, who won the men's team title at the recent Canada West championships, finished seventh in the team standings in Windsor with a school-record 41 points -- one fewer than the sixth-place Calgary Dinos.
"We had an outstanding meet," Regina interim head coach Bruce McCannel said Sunday at Regina International Airport after the Cougars arrived home. "Twenty-eight (points) was our old record and we had 31 by the end of Friday. Then we added 10 more (Saturday).
"I'd say we were extremely successful. I told the team before we went, '(The team mark) is on the record board so that we can try to break it,' and we did just that."
On Saturday -- the meet's final day -- the Cougars' 4x200-metre relay team (Mason Foote, Eric Clark, Les Andersen and Enyinnah Okere) finished fourth in one minute 29.22 seconds to earn five points. McCannel said the team could have been on the podium had a member of the Windsor Lancers team not stepped accidentally on one of Clark's heels during the second leg.
The Cougars' 4x400m relay squad (Clark, Andersen, Justin Baker and Tait Nystuen) was sixth in 3:22.00 to generate three points, and Regina's David Walford was seventh in the triple jump (14.25m) to earn two points.
In other Saturday events for the Cougars, Chris Pickering finished ninth in the shot put (14.50m), Ian Jestadt was 10th in the triple jump (13.04m), and Andersen was 11th in the triple jump (13.01m).
The Guelph Gryphons won the men's championship with 86 points, one more than Windsor.
On the women's side Saturday, the Cougars' Nicole Breker continued her stellar meet, finishing fourth in the women's triple jump with a leap of 11.87m to earn five team points.
On Friday, Breker finished third in the long jump (to generate six points) and sixth in the 60m hurdles (three points). The 20-year-old product of Muenster wound up scoring all of the U of R women's team's points during the meet.
"I'm really happy," said Breker, who went into the championships ranked second in the CIS in long jump, sixth in triple jump and ninth in the 60m hurdles. "I moved up in the rankings in everything except long jump. But I got a (personal best) in that, so that was good."
Also Saturday, Regina's Shalane Haselhan was ninth in the high jump (1.63m), Keisha Sharp finished 11th in the triple jump (10.91m), and Alison Jestadt was 12th in the triple jump (10.74m).
With 14 points, Regina's women finished 15th in the team race. Windsor won the title with 114 points.