Lady Rams gear up for successful track season

     The Winston-Salem State women's indoor track team seems poised for a successful season.

     Head Coach Inez Turner, who also coaches the cross country team, said that the team looked very strong at the JDL All Comers Meet in Winston-Salem on Nov. 16.

     "It's a new meet that was put in this year, and anybody could participate in it," Turner said.

     "We went, and we looked good. They [the runners] put on a nice little show for us [the coaches]."

     The meet was held at the newly built JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, where the team is allowed to practice, and Turner described it as a tune-up.

     "The All Comers Meet helped us, as coaches, to see where they [the runners] are and figure out what we need to work on. It also helped the athletes see how all of the training we've been doing is working for them."

     The Lady Rams will again compete at JDL Fast Track on Dec. 7 in their first official meet of the season.

     The CIAA and national track championships will also both be held at JDL, so Coach Turner hopes that the women will be seeing a lot of that particular track this year, outside of practice and the season-opening meet.

     "I have high expectations," she said.

     "We have some good-looking freshmen athletes coming in, and everybody looks excellent in practice. We have work to do, for sure, but we're getting better every day. We always plan to do well in everything we do. Whether it's cross country, indoors or outdoors, our plan is to do great."

     Turner said that if her team practices hard every day, the potential for this year's group of women is endless.

     "All we ask our athletes to do is to put as much effort into training and practice as possible. What they do in practice will flow over into the meets. If their bodies are used to hard training, they're going to run hard in competition, and that will fare very well for us in the end."

     Coach Turner likes the mix of freshmen talent and veteran leadership that her team possesses.

     "Just about our whole freshmen group has the potential to run and perform really great," Turner said.

     "As far as upperclassmen, we have sophomore Danisha Wiggins, junior Cruz Vargas-Sullivan and senior Kristi Baptiste. We're really looking for big things from junior Tajanel McNeill, who has already made Division II provisional qualifying marks in the triple jump. We expect for all of these ladies to lead and help bring the freshmen along. If they do that, we'll have a very good year."

     It won't be easy competing in the CIAA, one of the strongest track conferences in the nation, but Coach Turner is confident.

     "The conference is a tough one because almost half of the Division II national athletes come from the CIAA, but we are right in the mix and are ready to get up there and do great things," she said.