W. track: Bruin faces hurdles of many sorts

After tough transition, Hill qualifies for NCAAs with best time of season

Jeff Eisenberg
Published: Wednesday, June 1, 2005

The way UCLA’s MacKenzie Hill sees it, qualifying for the NCAA Championships this past weekend in Oregon was only the beginning.

Now that the sophomore hurdler has earned a trip to Sacramento next week, she is determined to prove that she belongs there.

Hill, a member of the U.S. Junior National team in high school, hadn’t made much of an impact in her first two years at UCLA. But Saturday, on the slick track at Oregon’s soggy Hayward Field, Hill finally had her breakthrough performance, taking second place in the 400-meter hurdles at the West Regionals in a season-best 59.60 seconds.

“After I ran that race, I was thrilled the whole weekend,” Hill said. “But I’m not satisfied with just qualifying. My goal is to make it to the finals.”

Simply earning a bid to NCAAs is a big step forward for Hill, who arrived at UCLA as one of the nation’s top prep hurdlers but has struggled to make the transition to the collegiate level.

Hill, who ran her lifetime-best time of 58.39 seconds at the U.S. Junior Nationals in June 2003, didn’t come close to matching that time until Saturday. She finished ninth at the Pac-10 Championships as a freshman, and left the track in tears after a poor race at the West Regionals in Northridge last May.

“It was hard last year,” Hill said. “I had never had a year that bad before. It was a lot harder than I thought, coming out of high school.”

Part of the reason Hill didn’t make a smooth transition was because she had only run the 400m hurdles a handful of times in high school. The California state champion in the 300m hurdles as a senior at Long Beach Wilson High School, Hill had to learn a brand new pattern and often didn’t have the strength or endurance to clear the final two hurdles.

“It was a matter of her getting used to the event,” UCLA women’s track coach Jeanette Bolden said.

“She’s been training at a pretty high level this year. It’s just a matter of her putting it all together.”

Despite a series of knee problems that sidelined her early in the outdoor season, Hill finally seems to be hitting her stride.

Had she not stumbled over the final hurdle at the USC dual meet last month, she likely would have taken first place. And her season-best performance at regionals puts her in position to help UCLA defend its national title at the NCAA Championships.

It won’t be easy for Hill to make it out of prelims because the field will be much stronger in Sacramento than any she has seen this year. Though Hill’s season-best time is the third slowest of the 27 qualifiers in the 400m hurdles, she has been running in the 57-second range in practice and hopes to finally be able to put together that caliber of race on collegiate track and field’s biggest stage.

Regardless of how she does at NCAAs, Hill is happy that she will have the chance to contribute this year after not qualifying a year ago, when the Bruins took home the national title.

“I was proud of my teammates, but I was pretty upset that I wasn’t competing,” Hill said. “I told myself it would not happen again.”