By Ricky Popolizio

While the weather in Southern Connecticut didn’t hold up for the men’s track meet this weekend, the women’s team continued to shine at the South Florida Invitational on Friday and Saturday in Tampa, Fla. The women combined to win four events, including the 4×100-meter relay in which they broke the school record with a time of 46.03 seconds.

“They ran extraordinarily well,” said head coach Sherman Hart. “It was one of those meets where everything was clicking.”

Last year the Huskies were almost shut out in the same events, but the women were not about to get stopped this year.

“Every time we go down to Florida, we are expected to pull out some faster times than we would up north,” said junior tri-captain Amy Hicks. “We did that and that was our goal.”

Hicks provided one of the highlights of the weekend for the Huskies, running a career-best in the 1,500-meter dash with a time of 4:43.74.

“I hadn’t done [the 1,500] for a while, so my strategy was to hang off of people because the backstretch was really windy,” Hicks said. “I wasn’t about to lead because I didn’t want to waste energy and win the first three laps, when it only matters in the end. I drafted off a couple of girls from Brown, and I had a little more energy going into the last 200 meters of the race.”

Hicks set the tone for the rest of the meet.

“It was a great start to a really good meet for us,” Hart said.

Hicks did not fare as well in the 800, but after a rough start, she finished strong and ended up in fifth.