Harbour leads women into Meyo Invite
One underclassmen having a good season is Tamica Harbour.
The sophomore sprinter and hurdler is currently No. 9 in the Mid-American Conference listings at the 60-meter hurdles and won the event last weekend at Saginaw Valley after coming off a hip flexor.
“We’re going to win, guaranteed,” Harbour said of the upcoming conference meet.
The hip flexor wasn’t much of an issue for Harbour as she ran away from the field last Friday.
“It felt really good to go out there and try my best and actually get one of my best marks,” Harbour said. “This week I just have to do my best and run my hardest for my teammates.”
The women’s track and field team is ready to start the final stretch for a run at the MAC Indoor Championships as they head into South Bend, Ind., and compete in the Meyo Invitational at Notre Dame.
In order to keep the team well rested, CMU track and field director Willie Randolph sat the sprinters and hurdlers last week. This week is the opposite as they will be the only ones in action as the field event athletes and the distance runners will be resting this week.
CMU will see a plethora of strong competition this week. Not only will host Notre Dame be in attendance, but other big name schools like Minnesota, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Florida could be there, in addition to conference rivals Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan.
“It is always a pretty big meet, (with) a variety of teams,” Randolph said. “We’re looking for everyone to start putting some times together to be at the top of the MAC at the level we need.”
Athletes not competing this week will be training in preparation for next week’s meet at Grand Valley State.
But those competing this week are preparing for a huge meet where they will see strong competition and an opportunity to measure themselves up against top competition.
Randolph, who graduated from CMU in 1998, was an assistant at Louisville, which competed in the Big East Conference against Notre Dame and went back-and-forth with them for Big East championships.
“I have a lot of peers around the country - we always see each other here or there and there is always little bragging rights like my kid beat yours,” Randolph said. “For me, it is exciting to see peers you don’t see anymore and compete at the same level.”
With the month of February underway, the indoor track and field season is in the home stretch and the season is really starting to take shape.
“Our throwers have gone another level where they haven’t been in quite awhile as coach Jon Ridgway and his group of athletes are putting up good marks with Whitney Johnson going through big transitions,” Randolph said. “Our young people are starting to compete at a higher level, pushing our upperclassmen.”
