CT Athlete-Led UConn Track Heads to Big East Championship
STORRS — The first thing Patricia Mroczkowski did after clearing the 6-foot mark in the high jump competition at LSU’s Joe May Invitational in early April was being knocked down by her UConn track teammates and kissing them in a sheer excitement.
Clearing 6 feet had been his goal since his senior year at Berlin High. That was always his goal as his first season at UConn was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And that remained her motivation even when her own battle with COVID resulted in a six-month struggle with myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle.
Last year, she could barely walk two flights of stairs without heart palpitations. She wore a heart monitor and visited the hospital monthly to help manage her increased heart rate.
“It was pretty awful, like I thought I was never really going to progress and everything was cut in my seasons,” Mroczkowski said on Monday.
The 2022 season is the first time in his college career that Mroczkowski feels. She is healthier and has found ways to manage the lasting effects of myocarditis without having to miss the track.
“I really had to think like, ‘This is my whole life, basically.’ I really care about the track in my heart and it’s something that’s really important to me and I can’t really be on my own. I also have teammates who look up to me,” she said. “It was always so frustrating because all I wanted to do was prove myself and come to school for athletics, like all I wanted to do was improve as a ‘athlete.”
The junior leads the Big East in high jump and is the favorite to win the conference event title this weekend at the Big East Track and Field Championships Friday and Saturday in Storrs.
It’s the first time UConn has hosted the outdoor conference championship since 2007 (the program was supposed to be held last spring but the event was moved due to COVID), and its men’s and women’s programs are the big ones. favorites to win the tag team titles.
While the men’s program has won five Big East outdoor tag team titles (most recently in 2021 with a conference record 294 points per tag team), the women’s program has only won two, winning its last in 1995. Programs have never swept the Big Outside East titles.
“Having him at home and on his home turf is definitely an advantage because we put our blood, sweat and tears on this track and we know the ins and outs of it,” Mroczkowski said. “If we get Big East champions on our home turf, it’s going to be crazy because we’ve been trying and preparing for so long. Our team is so strong this year and we’ve got a great freshman squad as well. It’s going to be pretty intense.
This weekend also marks the last team event for longtime Huskies head coach Greg Roy. After 37 years, Roy, director of cross country and athletics at UConn, will retire after the outdoor season.
The Big East Championship will be his last time coaching the entire team before it’s condensed for the NCAA Championships next month.
“The last time we held the Big East Championship, these kids were going to kindergarten or graduating,” he said. “It’s fantastic and to have a chance to win both, like we did indoors, is really exciting. … On some level, I would like to get on a plane and go somewhere and just… sit back and relax, watch the kids compete, but on another level it’s really great to have him home for the final go-around.”
The Huskies built on the momentum to sweep the Big East men’s and women’s indoor track and field titles in February in a successful spring outdoor season.
Mroczkowski is one of 14 Huskies ranked in the top 10 in their Big East event heading into this weekend. Five school records were rewritten, including two Connecticut natives at Norwalk senior Eric Van Der Els (ran the 5,000 meters in 13 minutes, 36.28 seconds at the Virginia Challenge) and New Milford senior Mia Nahom (ran the 5,000m in 4:00.35 p.m., also at the Virginia Challenge).
“I had a lot more fun racing this year,” Nahom said. “There’s just more energy. I think just coming out of COVID last year was tough for everyone, so coming into this year and having so much momentum all the time, it’s like, ‘This is so much fun. ‘ I’m so excited for the future of the program and jealous that I’m not here because it’s going in such a good direction.
Nahom wraps up his college career in track and field sometime next month, starting with this weekend’s conference championship and possibly ending at the NCAA championships in June in Eugene, Oregon. The fifth-year senior, who graduated on Monday, has seen more confidence in her races since the start of the season. She no longer waits to be in the “right race” to be fast, but she has developed the mental toughness to control her own pace.
“I just have more confidence where I can get fast,” she said. “It sounds silly, but it feels like I feel a bit more in control in the races, like I’m not just following people. I decide what I want to do and I’m confident in my moves.
Mroczkowski still has two seasons of away eligibility. She has expanded her high jump goals and now hopes to break the current school record (1.88 meters or 6.16 feet, set in 2004 by Deirdre Mullen). Mroczkowski thanks her teammates and coaches for getting her through the past two years of setbacks brought on by COVID-19.
She still takes heart medication and regularly checks her heart rate during workouts.
“I’m very paranoid something is going to happen to me,” she said. “Sometimes I think, like I could have been better if I didn’t have it? Could I have jumped higher? Could I have trained better? Could I have been stronger? The what ifs.
Roy, who suffered a stroke last year, said: “It’s very stressful and scary to hear that you might have a heart problem, especially for an endurance athlete, it’s unbelievable. “
But her coaches know she turned the corner and became the dominant jumper they knew she could be. She won the Big East indoor high jump title in February with a jump of 1.81 meters (5 feet, 11.25 inches) for her first conference title.
Her personal best of 1.83 meters (just over 6 feet) in the outdoor event at LSU in April tied her for 12th nationally in the event.
“I almost looked at it like it was the start of his career because it was a really, really tough competition,” Roy said of Mroczkowski’s PR. “The two things, the performance and the championship, together I think have really elevated her to a point where it’s like, ‘OK, we’re really going to work, let’s go with Patty Mroczkowski now.'”
Big East Outdoor Athletics Championships
Location: George J. Sherman Family Sports Complex, Storrs
When: Friday and Saturday May 13 and 14
Admission: Free for the public