Doggedness paying off for women’s track

If there is one thing fourth-year Nicholls track coach Scott Williamson has learned in his time at the helm, it’s that patience breeds success.

When he inherited the program, the track history at the university was practically null and void, finishing last place in the Southland Conference every year.

It’s taken time, but in his fourth year, Williamson is finally seeing the results he predicted.

During his tenure, the team has gotten progressively better, but this year he believes they’re beginning to break out.

Slowly, previous school records have been rewritten this season. The patience Williamson put into his first recruiting class is starting to pay off.

The first signs of that came at the Mississippi College relays April 6, where the Lady Colonels brought home their first- ever first place finish.

At that match, Nicholls tallied nine first place finishes, the most ever at a single event in school history.

Next up, at the South Alabama Invitational, the Colonels finished in the top five.

Following last week’s Kansas Relays, hosted at the University of Kansas, Nicholls has only one meet remaining – the Bob Cole Twilight next Wednesday – before the Southland Conference Championships on May 8.

“We’re pretty excited,” Williamson said. “We have a lot of pretty good things happening right now. We feel like we are just now starting to do a little bit more speed work, a little more technique work and getting into really good shape.”

“We haven’t hit our peak yet and we still have a couple weeks left of the regular season,” he added. “I think a lot of our girls are going to really step up to that next level and have some really good performances.”

At this point in the season, Williamson’s team has several girls ranked high in the conference standings.

Redshirt junior Leslie Bourgeois is first overall in the conference in the javelin throw. Freshman Danielle Daigle is right behind her in second.

In Daigle’s first meet, at USA, she placed third in the event but her throw of 41 meters was good enough to qualify her for the NCAA Regionals.

The 100-meter relay team of sophomore Tiffany Nall, sophomore Ashley Carpenter, freshman Samantha Calhoun and junior Naomi Green has also been improving their results and broke the school record two weeks ago with a time of 46.46. Distance runners, sophomore Imma Kosgei and junior Marion Chebet, are ranked third and seventh in the conference, respectively.

Kosgei currently holds the school record in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:43.05.

Junior Sabrina Henkes and Jarina Guilbeau have steadily improved on the hurdles, according to Williamson.

Henkes broke the school record in the 400-meter hurdles this year with a time of 1:04.28. Fellow junior Rahjanaye Bailey is third on that list with a time of 1:06.26. Guilbeau is fifth with 1:07.83 set in 2008.

In all, a total of seven school records have been broken over the last year with 26 more athletes landing in the school’s top five list all-time.

Williamson attributes the success not to better athletes, but to better development of the athletes.

“We’ve had the same athletes, but it’s taken a long time to develop,” Williamson said. “The girls on our team right now that are really successful, a lot of them are juniors. When I recruited them, it was my first recruiting class and it has just taken that time for them to develop and to be competitive in the Southland Conference, which is very competitive across the country.”

Senior sprinter Leshea Jenkins, the lone senior on the field team, said she has noticed a huge difference in the team from the time she first arrived in Thibodaux.

“We’re getting better each meet, we’re dropping records and we support each other,” she said. “I’m very happy and I’m proud to be able to be a part of the turnaround.”

“I’ve gotten better. My first year I made too many mistakes that I didn’t like, but by the time I got to my junior year I had dropped my times,” she added.

One of the most intriguing parts about the team this track season is that they have attained success without the luxury of their own facilities or without as great a budget as most other teams.

The team must travel down the road to E.D. White Catholic High School to share the track with nearby high school and middle school athletes.

It has the potential to be a nuisance, but Williamson said his team has done a great job of making the best with what they have.

“We’re definitely very grateful. I know sometimes it can be a cluster with all the high school kids, college kids and middle schools coming here and working out,” the coach said. “We do the best with what we have and try to move on from there.”

“The budget doesn’t hinder us one bit. We go out and try to find the best athletes that we can,” Williamson added. “There’s a lot of excitement and it’s something we never really had here as far as track and field. It’s probably the best we’ve ever been and we are pretty excited about it.”

Sabrina Henkes practices hurdles at E.D. White High School in Thibodaux. Henkes recently broke her own school record with a time of 1:04.28 in the 400-meter hurdles. Head coach Scott Williamson said he’s finally seeing the results of the athletes he started developing four years ago. * Photo by KYLE CARRIER