Sacramento State has turned into a track and field powerhouse in the Big Sky Conference. In 2007 and 2008, the team won three of the four men’s and women’s championships and will be looking to add to that total this season.

Kathleen Raske, director of Sac State’s track and field teams, has done her best to motivate the women’s team, guaranteeing a Big Sky Conference title for the women.

She doesn’t have the same level of confidence in the men’s team, saying she thinks they are a top-three team.

The women failed to repeat at the indoor championships at Northern Arizona last month in the high altitude. They finished second behind the host team. The men’s team failed in its attempt to repeat as conference champions, finishing a disappointing fifth.

Sac State did stake a claim to the two top individual honors at the indoor meet. Sophomore Ronald Brookins was named the men’s field athlete of the week, while junior Ericka Violett took the week’s women’s field athlete honors. Brookins and Violett, along with Renisha Robinson, were also invited to the NCAA Indoor Championships at College Station, Texas. The championships take place on Friday and Saturday.

Brookins jumped 25-02.75 in the long jump, improved on his personal best by almost a foot and a half and finishing ahead of his closest competitors by 15.75 inches.

Violett was honored for her victories in the long jump, 60-meter hurdles, triple jump and third-place finish in the pole vault.

“I’d say Violet performed better than we anticipated,” said Terry Van Laningham, director of championships. “You never want to put limits on athletes, but every now and then an athlete will improve more than you imagine, and she definitely improved more than we anticipated.”

Sophomore Renisha Robinson also finished her indoor conference season strong, repeating as the 800-meter champion. Her time of 2 minutes 8.64 seconds destroyed her school record time.

Freshman Marcus McMillan was the surprise of the championship, winning the 60-meter hurdles with a photo finish and a personal best time of 8.15 seconds.

Violett, Robinson and Brookins competed on Saturday at the University of Washington’s Last Chance Meet in Seattle. None of the three improved on their conference times.

All three will wait to find out if they qualified for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. Each has met the NCAA provisional mark during the course of the year but are not guaranteed automatic entrance.

Without indoor facilities at Sac State and with one of the fastest surfaces in the country at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex, the track and field team is excited for the outdoor season to get underway.

“That’s really what indoor is all about, preparing for the outdoor season,” said senior A.J. Reed, one of the team captains.

The women finished last year at the top of the Big Sky Conference for the first time. They are out to prove they can do it again this year. They lost Big Sky champions Tyriena Henley-Henderson and Lori Vaught to graduation, but the strong freshman class from last year’s team will have a year of experience to help in competition.

The men have finished second in the conference the last two outdoor seasons. The loss of three seniors – Raphael McFarlane, Jody Johnson and Daniel Imlach – all who last year qualified for the NCAA Division I championships, will make pushing through to win the championships difficult.

“It’s still too early to tell how good we are going to be,” Raske said. “But I’m really excited about the possibilities.”

One reason for the excitement is the improved performances from Brookins. After earning all-league honors as a freshman for his performance in the long jump and hurdles, his performance at indoor this year points to a sensational sophomore year.

“My goal this year is to really improve in the hurdles,” he said.

Both teams are healthy going into the outdoor season.

“We’ve been working hard to ensure the team is healthy for this season,” Raske said. “We should be 100 percent healthy when the season starts.”

The first outdoor meet of the season is the Aggie Open on Saturday at Davis, followed by the Hornet Invite on March 21 at home. The Big Sky Championship is May 13-16 at Missoula, Mont.

“We went into the indoor season a little dinged up but we came out of it in pretty good shape,” Van Laningham said.

Coaches and players are looking forward to an early test at the Cal-Nevada Championship at UCLA on March 27-28.

“That’s a really good event for our team,” Van Laningham said. “We will have an opportunity to go up against some really tough competition in as score-type atmosphere.”

San Diego native Brookins is also excited by the Cal-Nevada Championship. “Being from Southern California, it will be a thrill to compete against UCLA.”

Dan King can be reached at [email protected]