They say the third time is a charm, and for freshman Dayorsha Collins, that was the case at Saturday's Tufts Invitational I, held at the Gantcher Center.
After nearly hitting the provisional qualifying mark in the high jump in each of the last two meets, Collins, with a jump of 5'5 1/4", became the third member of the women's track and field team to provisionally qualify for NCAAs this season. Collins out-jumped sophomore Lauren Raimondi of UMass Lowell to take first place in the event, earning 10 of the Jumbos' 170 points in their second-place overall showing.
"She was duking it out with the Lowell girl," coach Kristen Morwick said. "I think the more the meet is on the line and the more competition she gets, those jumps will come, too. She responded really well in competing head-to-head with that girl. She's just a really talented athlete, and we're still working pretty hard."
Collins managed to best the qualifier despite jumping with a shorter eight-step approach as opposed to a typical 10 steps.
"I was having kind of a hard time in the beginning, but then [Morwick] was like, 'Don't focus on the height of it' -- just when I run up, just to jump high, and then I'll get over the bar -- I wasn't really thinking about qualifying or anything," Collins said.
"We're hoping to get that short approach perfect," Morwick added. "She's still having a little trouble with it. I think that's what throws her off when we get to higher heights, but she's got such good jumping ability that she's been able to clear some high heights ... I think when we move her back and she gets more comfortable with the approach, she's going to do really well."
Collins is part of a field events program whose younger members have been outstanding so far this season. Her qualifying jump came one week after classmate Nakeisha Jones provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships in the triple jump in her first-ever collegiate meet. Freshman pole vaulter Heather Theiss also turned out an impressive performance on Saturday, breaking the school record set last season by sophomore Allison Fechter with a 10'8" vault.
"Going into it, I was pretty confident that I was going to PR just because I had been jumping very well in practice," Theiss said. "My previous record had been 10-foot-4, so it was really exciting to get that five-inch PR. Afterwards, I was just really, really thrilled ... and just kind of in awe for a little."
Theiss' performance also landed her first place in the event, which has not been Tufts' strongest in recent years.
"I got points all the time in high school, but coming into college, you don't really know where you stand in regards to all the kids," Theiss said. "There are so many more people, and you don't really know the talent that's out there and how you'll measure up. It was just kind of surprising in that respect to come in first at my first meet -- that was really nice as well."
"I like the fact that the people that have come this year spread out where we get our points from," Collins added. "It's a nice fact that you know you can get points for your team in something that they weren't as good at before."
Sophomore Stephanie McNamara was also back in action after qualifying provisionally for Nationals in the 5,000-meter run in Dec. 6's season opener at Northeastern. Competing in the 3,000-meter run, McNamara put down a winning time of 10:06, earning her the second-best mark in school history behind former teammate Cat Beck (LA '08).
"I haven't run the 3k since the Tufts invite last year, so I really kind of went into it with no big expectations," McNamara said. "In my workouts, I had been doing really well and I felt really good going into it, but I didn't expect a 10:06 -- that's a 30-second PR for me."
While the 3k is not a national championship event, McNamara will look to earn her second qualifier of the season in the mile event at next weekend's Terrier Invitational at BU, where the team will meet some heftier competition.
"She hasn't run the mile distance since the end of outdoor," Morwick said. "She's run some longer distances in between, so that will be interesting to see how she responds to the shorter stuff. But still, it's so early that I think if she could hit a provisional time, that would be great, but it's not do-or-die time. We're just trying to get decent seed times in all of her events so we have some choices later in the season."
