Feb. 28, 2004

HOUSTON- The UAB Blazers came to the Conference USA Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships with making an impression on the elite teams of the conference. Consider the impression a good one.

UAB finished the conference meet in the top-10 for the first time in three years scoring 31 points to finish eighth. The improvement was 16 points and four places over last year's finish, only this year they did it with mostly freshmen.

Of the 23 freshmen on the team roster seven had a hand in scoring during the meet, and coach Ray Stanfield said it was impressive the way they performed.

"We're a better outdoor team than indoor just because of the athletes we have on the team" he said. "So for the freshmen to come here and score consistently it should give them a huge boost of confidence heading to the outdoor season."

The freshmen however weren't the only one's running.

The Blazers made their biggest move of the day picking up eight points in the 60-meter hurdles final. Junior Theresa Smith crossed the line with a season's best time of 8.60 to finished in fourth while another junior, Judy Shephard, finished two places behind in sixth with a time of 8.73. Shephard concluded the meet with seven total points after finishing fourth in Friday's pentathlon.

"It was great to see Judy really came into her own this week," Stanfield said.

After an unexpected qualification in the 200-meters on Friday, junior Crystal Hunter surprised again with the second fastest time in UAB history of 24.88 in the final. Her time was good enough to claim fifth place and four points for the Blazers.

Freshman Petra Ivanova picked up three points on Saturday after competing in two distance events. Ivanova's time of 5:04.15 in the mile was good enough for seventh place and broke her own freshman record by almost four seconds. Later in the afternoon she finished eighth in the 800-meters.

Freshman Oriana Carter grabbed two points with a seventh place finish in the 60-meter dash. Her time of 7.64 was .01 off her personal best. Erin Harris became the third freshman of the day to score for UAB as she had a personal best of 38'5" in the triple jump. Harris scoring was also unexpected because she almost wasn't entered in the event.

"We only entered her because she didn't want to sit around all day," Stanfield said.

The 4x400 meter relay team of Amanda Hart, Normanie McKenzie, Crystal Hunter and Elace Minnifield closed out the scoring earning three points for their sixth place time of 3:52.12.

Final results included TCU with 125 points claiming the championship, South Florida in second with 97.5 and two time defending champion Houston finished third with 92. Tulane finished fourth with 78, followed by Marquette 49, Charlotte 47, DePaul 40, the Blazers 31, ECU 29, Louisville 26.5, Cincinnati 22, Southern Miss 17 and Memphis 9.