University of Minnesota Athletics
Bingle Previews Arizona Trip
4/7/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track & Field
April 7, 2016
MINNEAPOLIS - Director of women's track & field and cross country Matt Bingle discusses the Gophers' outdoor season so far and looks ahead to this weekend's meets in Arizona.
Minnesota is headed to the Sun Angel Classic hosted by Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., on Friday and Saturday. The Gophers are also slated to compete at the Mesa Classic hosted by Mesa Community College on Friday.
Gopher Sports: How do you feel about the outdoor season so far?
Bingle: I feel like we're in a pretty good spot right now. We've had a lot of good opening performances. Everyone has done their main event one time now for the most part. I feel good about coming off spring break and meets at Raleigh and UCLA. We're in a good situation. We're relatively injury free. The women on the team have been working hard, and we're where we're supposed to be right now. We've got a lot of work to do, but we're in a good spot.
Gopher Sports: What are you hoping to see out of the team this weekend?
Bingle: Well, a lot of people now are running their real event for the first time, or running a secondary event, like Titania Markland is going to run the 400m and Kaila Urick is going to run the steeple. Nicolle Murphy gets to throw the javelin one more time, and Ally McSherry is going to run the 800m. The multis are taking the weekend off because they're going to Mt. Sac next week.
There are lots of little things happening to put people in their true events for either the first or second time, to get a little bit of repetition out of it. I'm excited to see if we take another step. It will be the first time competing together, pretty much as a whole team, minus the multis. It's going to be the best competition we've seen too, so it'll be good to get them to measure themselves and see how they respond to a high level of competition. For the coaches too, it will help us figure out what needs to come next. It's a good measuring stick for everybody. They just have to realize that they better step up and bring the fight.
Gopher Sports: Has anyone surprised you with their performances so far this season?
Bingle: There have been a lot of good openers. I would say the 100m hurdles surprised me in my group, breaking the school record in their first race. That's the best race Kimberly Golding or Emma Spagnola have had, and it was a good response by all of our hurdlers.
I would say with the distance area, it was good to see Madeline Strandemo open up well with a big PR in the steeple. I kind of thought that's what would happen based off her performance indoors, but it was still good to see.
In the throws, it was good to see Murphy open up where she did, but also a lot of girls, like Agnes Esser, were just off their PRs. There are a lot of women across the board that opened up well. We're not fast right now, we're fit and we've got good strength, but we don't have the speed and endurance quite yet. It's good to see that we're performing well off strength work, and not necessarily specific work yet. I'm cautiously excited with where we're at right now, but we have to take another step forward this weekend.
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Players Mentioned
