Final WAC Outdoor T&F Championships Results

EL PASO, TEXAS - University of Hawai'i discus thrower Novelle Murray picked up gold today at the 2003 Western Athletic Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Kidd Field hosted by UTEP where it was very arid and temperatures soared 97 degrees.

Murray, who was the first person in the event, threw the discus 47.57 meters on her very first try, setting the mark for remaining 14 competitors.

Murray, a freshman from Fleetwood Park Secondary in Surrey, B.C., Canada, already hit her NCAA West Region qualifying standard earlier in the spring.

Teammate Alexis Fredrick placed 11th overall in the event with a toss of 37.13m. Fredrick also participated in the hammer throw, placing 12th overall with a throw of 36.06m.

UH had three runners participate in the 5000m run with the highest finisher Robin McRobbie crossing the finish line at 18 minutes, 56.82 seconds in 14th place. UH's two other finishers were Teryn Bentley in 17th place (19:36.47) and Shayne Enright in 20th (20:55.71).

Carolyn Berger was the only other participant today as she placed 13th in the 1500m run coming in at 5:11.78.

As a team, UH finished in ninth place as Rice edged Nevada for the women's team title.

It was UH's second-straight season placing ninth, but Head Coach Carmyn James the team responded more positively this season even though they left one top distance runner at home and did not run another in her normal event.

"We didn't bring Victoria (Chang) on the trip," James said. "She had already made her NCAA qualifying times, and we didn't want to subject her to the gueling dry heat and altitude.

"Also, we held Hanna (Bremler) out of the 1500m because we knew we would have scored more points, but it would have not got us to eighth," James added.

Furthermore, the 4x400m relay team of Berger, Bremler, Kira Lee, and Amanda Page posted the best time (4:00.83) in the event since the program restarted two years ago.

Next up for UH is Sunset Series Meet #10 at the newly refurbished Cooke Field on May 21, and the NCAA West Regional at Stanford set for May 30-31.