Performances by Paige Roberts and Cicely Campbell Highlight Vanderbilt Showing at SEC Quad Meet Saturday

Columbia, S.C. - Two Commodore track and field athletes who have struggled to regain their past form, middle distance runner Cicely Campbell and pole vaulter Paige Roberts, were the Vanderbilt standouts Saturday at the Southeastern Conference Quad Meet on the University of South Carolina campus.

Roberts, a sophomore from Atascadero, Calif., established a new Vanderbilt outdoor record, clearing 11’6.25” to finish second behind Florida’s Stephanie Hood, who was forced to match her season best of 12’0” to win. Roberts' effort breaks the former Vanderbilt outdoor record of 11’5.75” set last year by Lauren Tinsley.

It was easily Roberts’ top performance of the season. Roberts, who needs to clear 12’0” to qualify for the NCAA Region meet, now holds both team indoor and outdoor standards in the vault. In 2002, she set the indoor vault with a clearance of 11’9.75”.

Campbell, a senior coming off a 2002 season marred by injury, posted her finest 800 meters in nearly two years, finishing a close second with an effort of 2:11.94. Campbell, entering the race seeded sixth, left the track with one of the top seven 800 times in the SEC this year. Campbell’s time, though shy of her career best set at the 2001 SEC Outdoor Championships, is just a second off the NCAA Region qualifying standard.

After finishing fifth in the 2001 SEC meet, Campbell experienced disappointment last year. She missed the entire 2002 outdoor season due to knee surgery. Campbell began showing a return to form near the end of indoor season and prepped for the SEC Quad Meet with an excellent 4x800 relay leg last week at the Raleigh Relays.

In other competition, versatile sophomore Josie Hahn posted second place finishes in the high jump (5’3”) and javelin (129’0”), then set a personal best of 17’11” on her last long jump attempt to finish sixth.

Junior Vensherrie Campbell finished fifth in the discus with a season best of 147’6”, and established a personal best in the hammer throw(145’2”).

Three freshmen, Amanda Mullins-Hall, Caitlin Shannon and Jackie Wachsman, also earned points while setting collegiate bests at the meet. Mullins-Hall became the sixth fastest 200-meter runner in Vanderbilt track & field history with a 25.06 effort and also finished fifth in the 100-meter hurdles in 14.13. Shannon’s 1,500-meter effort of 4:41.62, good for sixth place, took nearly a second off her previous best this year accomplished at the Alabama Relays. Wachsman’s continues to improve at long distances as she set a 5,000-meter best (18:30.17) to finish fifth.

The Commodores will travel to Knoxville next weekend for the Sea Ray Relays.