Wahine track team heads to the finish line at WAC meet

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

"Track and Field: The University of Hawai'i Sequel" has been one breathless sprint from start to this week's Western Athletic Conference Championship finish. Ironic for a team with no sprinters.

Cheryl Smith is the fastest in the conference at 10,000 meters. Advertiser library photo

They are under no illusions of team grandeur.

"At the very beginning we knew it's not like we're going to go out and win any championships or really do anything," said junior Casey McGuire-Turcotte. "This is the first year and nothing is going to make us realize that more than going to this meet and realizing how really big time it is.

"We've been fortunate to go to meets not too out of our league, but this will be big time — trials and finals and the real thing."

Only the top six performers score this week. Rice, ranked 15th nationally, is seeking its fifth WAC title in six years, against seven opponents.

The Wahine are not serious challengers as a team — ask them — but they are as individuals.

Cheryl Smith has the WAC's fastest time at 10,000 meters, a 34:25.35 that is a provisional qualifier for the NCAA Championships in two weeks. She is ranked second in the 3000 (9:53.89) — not being run this week — and third in the 5000 (16:52.03).

Casey McGuire-Turcotte is training hard, but is also having fun. Advertiser library photo

McGuire-Turcotte, a Hawai'i Prep graduate, has run personal bests in all three of her events since leaving track power Oregon. She is among the WAC's Top 10 in the 1500 (4:34.62) and 3,000 (10:15.24), and blew away her previous best time in the 800 last time she ran (2:14.72).

She has found peace and running prosperity in the unlikeliest of places — home — after two years of injury and tuition debt in Eugene.

"People have the idea when you come back to Hawai'i that you've failed somewhere else," said McGuire-Turcotte, who gives assistant coach Johnny Faerber a huge assist for her success. "For me to know I'd be qualifying for the Pac-10 and running well at whatever school I'd be at ... that's a great feeling. The surprise for me comes in realizing I had it all along. I just had to find an environment that could help me."

Teammates Courtney Barlow (5,000), Carolyn Berger (400 hurdles) and Diosa Hussey (shot put) also rank among the WAC's dominant dozen, but all those numbers mean little now. At this point, coach Carmyn James is looking at the bottom line: personal bests, for everyone, in Fresno. It is what training — and the previous three wind-blown, flash-flood, thunder-and-lightning tinged meets — have been all about.

"Now there should be no distractions or surprises," James says. "Based on all that experience, hopefully they can crank it up intensity-wise because that's the way training has been going. They should be prepared to peak."

Where that puts the Wahine in the WAC, no one knows. McGuire-Turcotte does know she has enjoyed the ride.

"We don't have quantity, we all know that," she says. "Not a whole bunch of us will even make finals at the WAC Championships, but it's so much fun. I'm a pretty intense person and to be on a team like this helps me out, puts it in perspective. You can work hard, but still laugh afterwards."

QUICK SPLITS: UH coach Carmyn James expects to have a resurfaced, NCAA-sanctioned track by the end of the year. ... The Wahine have the equivalent of eight scholarships this season. That will go up to 14 in the fall and the maximum 18 in 2002-03. ... Canadian Andy McInnis has been hired as James' second assistant, but is still trying to get his working visa. ... Winners at the WAC meet earn 10 points, with second worth eight, third worth six, fourth worth four, fifth worth two and sixth worth one. ... Rice sophomore Allison Beckford, from Jamaica, has the second-best 400-meter hurdle time in the country, 56.31.