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Hahn, Schneble Lead Commodores Into SEC Indoor Championships 2/26/2004 Shepard Looking To Match Best Conference Finish Ever NASHVILLE – The Vanderbilt women’s squad will be seeking to achieve its best team finish ever when the Southeastern Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships start Friday in Lexington, Kentucky. Led by event contenders Josie Hahn and Erika Schneble and several others competing at career-best levels, Head Coach Lori Shepard says the Commodores are looking to improve off a fourth consecutive 10th place result in 2003 in the ultra-tough SEC meet. “As a team, we definitely want to finish better than 10th,” Shepard said. “If things fall our way and our team competes like I think they can, we can contend for eighth. That would equal our best finish ever at the meet.” The Commodores have managed an eighth place finish at the SEC Indoor Championships on two occasions. In 1998, All-Americans Leslie Vidmar and Ryan Tolbert led the Commodores to an eighth overall finish and all-time team high of 45 points. The squad also finished eighth in 1991. The SEC meet, which features nine teams ranked among the Top 25 in the nation, starts Friday afternoon at Nutter Fieldhouse on the University of Kentucky campus. The meet continues through Sunday afternoon. Vanderbilt’s team fate could be a boost by the conclusion of Friday’s activities. Hahn, one of the Commodores’ top athletes, competes in the pentathlon Friday. Ranked fourth nationally in the five-discipline event, Hahn is looking to improve off a fourth place pentathlon finish at the SEC Championships last winter. Her competition is expected to include Georgia’s Hyleas Fountain, the nation’s top-ranked pentathlete. Hahn also returns early Saturday in the individual high jump where she recently set the Vanderbilt mark with a 5’10.75″ clearance at the Razorback-Tyson Invitational. Hahn enters the competition as the SEC’s third-ranked jumper, behind Fountain and Florida’s Krystle Moss. Schneble, a distance-running sophomore from Hendersonville, N.C., is considered the Commodores’ other top contender in the 5,000-meter run, scheduled late Sunday. Schneble ran the fastest 5,000 meters by a SEC athlete this winter when she covered the distance in 16:39.27 at the Razorback-Tyson Invitational. The performance broke Vanderbilt’s existing mark by 18 seconds. Other Commodores to compete include: |
