WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Sherita Williams knew she had to do something big during her final attempts in the triple jump competition at the Big Ten Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships on Sunday.
The sophomore from Tampa, Fla., had just seen her leading jump of 12.71 meters eclipsed by Minnesota’s Shani Marks, who jumped 12.74 meters and was seemingly on her way to victory.
“I just knew if I wanted to win, I had to put out something better or equal to,” Williams said.
Williams, who had set two school records earlier in the year and had the second-best mark in the Big Ten entering the competition, stepped up and launched herself to a season-best jump of 12.74 meters, tying Marks.
Because her second-best jump of 12.71 meters was better than Marks’ next best, Williams was crowned Big Ten champion in the triple jump.
Her yearlong goal of winning the triple jump at the Big Ten Tournament finally came true.
“I’m more than happy just because maybe the pressure is off me a little,” she said.
Williams also finished sixth in the long jump and seventh in the pentathlon, but it was her efforts in the triple jump that highlighted MSU’s ninth-place finish.
In addition to Williams’ heroics, the Spartans had other solid individual performances during the weekend.
Junior Ann Somerville, MSU’s top distance runner, competed in three events, finishing fourth in the 3,000-meter run, third in the one-mile run, and fourth in the 5,000-meter run.
“I just wanted to go out there and run my hardest and to stay in the mix of the top three or top five,” Somerville said. “I wish I could have done a little bit better. It was an average performance but I got the points for my team and I’m happy about that.”
Other Spartan highlights included junior Maia Knox’s sixth-place finish in the high jump and freshman Michelle Carson’s seventh-place finish in the 5,000-meter run.
Head coach Angela Goodman said the team’s goal was to get between 45 and 50 team points this year, but she was still happy with the team’s effort considering the Spartans scored 18 at last year’s Big Ten Tournament and couldn’t score a single point during the 1999 NCAA Championships.
“I’m very pleased with today’s efforts and ecstatic with 42.5 points considering where we came from two years ago,” she said. “We’re going in the right direction and I’m happy about that.”
Somerville called this weekend’s meet a good “building block” for MSU’s future.
“We’re a young team,” she said. “We’re trying to gain experience and get up there.”
Host Purdue captured the team title by finishing with 108 points.
Purdue head coach Ben Paolillo, drenched from a Gatorade shower afterward, said the win was special considering in 1984 he took over a program that was near the bottom of the conference.
Paolillo said given the progress the MSU program has made under Goodman, he thinks a similar path of success could be ahead for the Spartans.
“A few years ago they were really in the bottom of the conference so obviously she’s done some nice things,” he said.
“You can see they’ve got some really quality individuals. It just takes time to get a lot of quality individuals so you can compete like we did today for a conference championship.”
