Broussard Fares Better On Track Than Freeway
A somewhat weary Seville Broussard handily won the women’s high jump and 400-meter hurdles during Saturday’s Cougar Invitational track meet at Washington State University.
The previous evening’s Toyota Tercel Invitational had been another story entirely.
Broussard, a redshirt sophomore at Eastern Washington University, was lapped by the field Friday night after getting an unexpected lesson in late-night tire repair during a routine trip from Spokane to Cheney.
“My car was like, ‘Seville, you know what? You ran over a nail so I’m stopping right here,”’ Broussard said. “I had to put my spare on, and the spare is one of those little itty-bitty donut ones and it says you don’t exceed 30.
“Well, the freeway limit is like 70, so I’m going 25 with my hazard lights on. People are honking at me and everything.”
By the time she made it home, it was nearly midnight. And by the time she made it to WSU’s Mooberry Track for Saturday’s 11 a.m. start, Broussard felt like taking a nap.
Instead, the former Walla Walla High School star cleared 5-8-3/4 for the first time since undergoing reconstructive knee surgery two years ago. She had been stuck on 5-8.
Broussard missed narrowly on 5-11-1/4, the height she had cleared before her right knee was injured during a long-jump competition in early 1995. “I didn’t make the 5-11, but I could feel it,” Broussard said. “I’m right there. I can feel it. I’m so happy.”
She went on to take the 400-meter hurdles in 1:00.84, well off the 59.92 she ran at last week’s Stanford Invitational, and finished a close second in the 100 hurdles.
Broussard wasn’t the only impressive performer Saturday.
WSU’s Ian Waltz swept the shot put and discus for the third consecutive weekend. His 61-7 in the shot was a personal best and within 1-1/4 inches of automatically qualifying for June’s NCAA outdoor championships.
“That’ll get me in for sure - it better, or I’m fighting,” said Waltz, who was left out of the recent indoors when a flurry of impressive marks knocked him from contention at the last minute. “But I’ve still got plenty of meets to do that (qualify automatically).”
The WSU women’s 4x100 relay team qualified provisionally in 45.12 seconds, the second-fastest time in school history. Attrina Higgins, filling in for injured anchor Francesca Green, joined Sharika Higgins, LaTroya Mucker and Tamika Brown in coming within .04 seconds of the WSU record.
Probably the day’s biggest upset was provided by WSU freshman Anna Church. Church heaved the javelin 154-4 to become a provisional qualifier, rebounding from an admittedly shaky showing last week.
“Down at Stanford last week, I was terrified,” said Church, bothered more by anxiety than the soreness in her throwing elbow. “I just have to get over my nerves, just do what I normally do. I’m getting there.”
Next week’s Pepsi Invitational, also at Mooberry and featuring teams from Washington State, Oregon and Idaho, will provide a stiffer test.
That’s because Saturday’s meet was watered down on several fronts - the absence of injured stars like Green and Leo Slack, a ban on unattached athletes and Idaho’s decision to rest some of its top performers.
WSU coach Rick Sloan decided to keep out unattached athletes this year to avoid multiple heats for each event, and the meet did run more smoothly than many others. But Idaho coach Mike Keller didn’t like the tradeoff.
“I just think there are so few guys that allow open competitors into meets,” Keller said. “And the Eastern Washington-Idaho three-way meet is not that big a thing.
“There aren’t enough meets for these kids to improve (by facing competition from more experienced athletes).”
Keller wasn’t about to convince Sloan.
“I wanted to clean it up so we didn’t have 40-year-old guys coming out and throwing the discus,” Sloan said. “I wanted to clean it up and make it a nice, competitive, scored meet.”
Washington State beat Idaho and Eastern Washington in both men’s and women’s team competition, while Idaho swept Eastern Washington.
, DataTimes