Shaneika Bowra Opened the season with a PR at the Maryland Invitational.

College Park, MD- The University of the District of Columbia women's Track and Field team had a strong showing in their season opener at the Maryland outdoor Track & Field Invitational on Saturday, March 16th.

Despite the cold weather conditions Senior Shaneika Bowra was able to snag a PR in the 100m with a time of 12.36s to place first in her heat and third overall. This time is almost a second faster than the 13.15s she ran last year at the UMD Invitational. Freshman Shanise Rose also had a strong showing in the 100m finishing with a time of 12.88s to place 8th overall in her debut outdoor meet as a Firebird.

Bowra and Junior Cierra Roberts finished 9th & 10th overall in the 200m with times of 26.35s & 26.37s respectively. Freshman Patricia McLean ran a time of 27.65s to finish 14th overall.  Roberts also won the long jump with a jump of 5.44m and placed 6th overall in the 400m with a time of 1:00:62s. Junior Temera Duncan placed 10th with a time of 1:02:52s.

Other standout performances came from Sophomore Tishana Dorn and Junior Shannell Hibbert. Dorn won her heat in the 800m with a time of 2:28:12s to place 8th overall and Hibbert placed 4th in the 100m hurdles and 5th in the 400m hurdles with a time of 1:08:34s.

UDC also had two teams compete in the 4x100m relay. The B team of Rose, Roberts, Nicholson and Hibbert placed 3rd overall with a time of 50.77s just barely edging out the A team of Mclean, Duncan, Dorn and Bowra who placed 4th overall with a time 50.98s.

"With the weather being what it was, cold and windy, I think as a team we had a good meet, but we had some great individual performances as well," said Coach Phillip. "The goal for this meet was for us to see where we are beginning this new outdoor season and for the most part the team did a good job of doing so. There are still a number of things we need to work on so that we can be at our very best throughout the season."