Although it was to be expected that the weather would be less than ideal at Eastern Illinois, it wasn’t expected that some of that weather would travel south to Texas and affect the Texas Relays as well.

“Thursday and Friday were good weather days, there were probably three or four thousand people there. Saturday was much different. We got some snow flurries and there were probably 15 people there,” head coach Gary Winckler said.

The Illini competed throughout the weekend and fared well. Carlene and Camile Robinson were the headliners in the 400-meter hurdles with regional qualifying times of 59.06 and 58.75, respectively. Briana Cunningham timed at 1:00.48 seconds in the same event, but in the final she lost her footing.

“Briana had some bad luck in the 400 finals,” assistant coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said. “She had hit the eighth hurdle coming off the turn into the straightaway. She got up and finished, but they gave her a time of 66 seconds.”

Senior Yvonne Mensah took sixth in the long jump with a distance of 19’10.25″ and ran a time of 11.73 seconds in the 100-meter dash, a regional qualifying time. LaNeisha Waller also qualified for regionals with a time of 13.59 in the 100-meter hurdles. The 4×100 team of Tiara Armstrong, Omoye Ugiagbe, Waller and Mensah ran a season-best and regional-qualifying time of 45.55 seconds.

Winckler was very skeptical going into the weekend. The Illinois women’s track and field team was splitting up to race in two meets, the Texas Relays and the Eastern Illinois Invitational. Winckler was confident in the upcoming performances of his athletes, but he was not so sure that the elements would cooperate with the meets.

Temperatures hovered around freezing all weekend at the EIU Invite in Charleston, Ill., putting the participation of the team in question. Winckler had described the meet as a “work meet” where the athletes could get more experience and repetitions under their belt. He was still disappointed, though, when the weather forced the split squad in Charleston to not participate.

“You hate to miss competitive opportunities.” Winckler said. “That being said, you can’t let it affect you. … Especially in this area, if you get a bad day like you did on Saturday, you can’t get anything accomplished, but you have to move on.”

The Illini women will practice all week before hosting the Illinois Invitational on Saturday.

“It’s going to be another work meet,” Buford-Bailey said. “But for some of the girls who didn’t get to compete at Eastern, it’s going to be the last time for some of the people who aren’t going to Invites. It’s unfortunate for them, but it will be a time to shine too.”