UNLV track team has individual goals at NCAA meet

It's supposed to be a team sport, but without a teammate to deliver a crushing block or a beautiful pass, track truly is an individual competition.

That's especially the case at UNLV, which enters the NCAA Championships hoping for individual rather than team accomplishments.

Senior Lekeisha Lawson in the 200-meter dash and junior Candise Maxwell in the 100-meter hurdles will represent the Rebels in Fayetteville, Ark., beginning today.

Qualifying a small number of athletes for the national meet is nothing new for the Rebels, who hope to return the program to its heights of 1992, when eight athletes competed and UNLV finished sixth.

UNLV has not matched that total since, and six times didn't send anyone to NCAAs.

Second-year coach Yvonne Scott-Williams showed progress by sending a relay team last year and thought she would add to that number this season. But injuries to three athletes prevented them from attempting to qualify.

"We're relying on these two to hold the fort," Scott-Williams said of Lawson and Maxwell.

Lawson knows what it's like to compete at NCAAs, having made the trip to last year's meet with the 400-meter relay team. She said because she went with a relay, it seemed more like a team atmosphere, which probably made what happened even worse. Lawson dropped the baton on the second exchange, and the Rebels didn't finish.

"You want to get back there and make sure you actually get a chance to compete," Lawson said. "That motivated me the whole year."

Scott-Williams said she hopes this meet serves as a building block for Lawson, whose time of 23.62 in the 200 is the nation's 25th fastest.

"She hasn't reached her potential yet," Scott-Williams said. "I hope that she decides to continue running after college and see what she can do.

"I think she has the talent (to be on the national team). She has the work ethic and the willpower. It's not going to happen overnight. It's a long process. You can work four or eight years to get to that, but I think she's capable."

Maxwell, who clocked 13.48 in the 100 hurdles (25th nationally), will have another year at UNLV.

"I have a lot of goals for next season, so hopefully from here it will carry me on to be a better hurdler and sprinter," Maxwell said.

Scott-Williams took advantage of the preparation for this year's meet by working more closely with Lawson and Maxwell than she could during the regular season.

"She can pay more attention to detail," Lawson said. "When she has four or five athletes at the same time, it's hard to see what everybody is doing wrong."