Throughout college, Brienne Karow has dedicated herself to learning and teaching. Karow has spent her time between learning a perfect technique for the discus and hammer throws, and teaching elementary schools students in Onondaga County elementary schools.

Karow took some time off her junior year to dedicate her time fully to teaching. After not competing for more than a year, Karow has returned to track and field and started the 2007 spring season off with two first-place finishes. She placed first in both the discus and hammer throws at the Dick Shea Open in West Point on Saturday.

The meet had no team score, but Karow and five of her Orange female teammates placed first in their respective events.

Karow won the discus with a distance of 39.91 meters and the hammer throw by throwing a distance of 43.50 meters. Neither distances were among her best, yet both gave her the win by outthrowing her opponents by .04 meters and 1.50 meters, respectively.

Assistant coach Enoch Borozinski described Karow as calm before competing for the first time outdoors in over a year. Borozinski described the first few meets of the season as a way to get back into competition mode and become accustomed to competing outdoors.

‘She didn’t look nervous at all,’ Borozinski said. ‘The hammer throw is a spring event, and it’s very hard to replicate indoors, so as she gets more and more repetitions of throwing outside we will see even more good things.’

Karow, a senior elementary and special education major, decided not to compete last spring season due to scheduling conflicts with her student teaching. Karow and a few other athletes took time off when there was a staff change and Borozinski took over the throws, but by the time they began practicing again it was too late to do anything significant.

‘I would have had to miss too many days of teaching at the school in order to continue competing for the team,’ Karow said. ‘I didn’t want to have to do that, and it wouldn’t have been fair to the kids.’

Karow continues to student-teach this season, but decided to compete after reworking her schedule, which some days means she is not finished practicing until 7 p.m.

‘Brienne has a very wacky schedule right now and it’s not always beneficial for her,’ Borozinski said. ‘She comes so late at night, sometimes it’s hard for her to meet with the coaches she needs, but she is still coming out and doing very well with things.’

Karow possesses more speed than strength, which gives her an advantage in the hammer throw. However, during the winter season only the discus is competed.

‘Indoors is definitely not her thing, discus becomes her main event and it’s weird for her because the 20 pound discus weight is pretty heavy for her,’ Borozinski said. ‘The hammer is lighter and quicker so that works better for her.’

‘Discus is my favorite event,’ Karow said. ‘However, I am not a very big person so speed is what I need, I don’t have much strengthen to muscle it out there, so I need speed, so hammer is something I can get really quick with.’

Discus is an event that you can gain the right technique with from power, but with the hammer throw, momentum and technique is needed, so speed is a good asset for Karow to have.

After watching the video tape of Karow’s performance from this weekend, Borozinski and Karow both noticed her block and finish needed some improvement because she locks up her legs to early, but she was close to having a near perfect stance.

‘The hammer throw is one of those things when you do something right you are not going to improve by just a foot or two, you can improve by a few meters,’ Borozinski said. ‘She’s not too far off of being right, with an event like that nearly anything can happen for her by the end of the season.’

Because the hammer throw is based around speed, the coaching staff thinks that continuous repetitions outdoors will help a lot of things fall into place for Karow.

‘After I won the discus, I didn’t let it phase me, I just got ready for the hammer thrower,’ Karow said. ‘I just wanted to have a good day at the meet and this was a great place to start, but there are plenty of things to fix and plenty of room to grow.’

Published on March 25, 2007 at 12:00 pm