Ramon Sosa, like any track hurdler, still falls sometimes during practice. But the freshman doesn’t let those spills keep him out of action.

Only a few weeks removed from a tough fall, Sosa will run two races this weekend at the Raleigh Relays in North Carolina, anchoring the 4×100-meter relay and hoping for a clean run through the 110-meter hurdles.

Sosa fell in practice three weeks ago, landing awkwardly and jamming his heel and wrist into the ground. But he still got into the starting blocks with his wrist wrapped for the IC4A Indoor Championships in Boston on March 6. Sosa never got out of the blocks though, false starting and was disqualified from his 60-meter hurdle race. After much rest and only two days of real practice, Sosa had a much better showing in his first outdoor race, qualifying for the Big East Championships, to be held in May.

‘It went all right considering I hadn’t run in a while,’ Sosa said.

The wrapped wrist and limited practice were new for Sosa to contend with, but Sosa is accustomed to trying new things. He followed his family from Queens to Long Island, leaving all of his friends to start high school. As a freshman at Brentwood High School, he was cut at baseball tryouts. Sosa gave up fielding ground balls at third base and shortstop, and joined the track and field team.

Sosa kept asking his coach to let him run hurdles in his first year, but it wasn’t as natural as he makes it look now for Syracuse.

‘I fell actually,’ Sosa said. ‘I was just messing around, everybody was finished (practicing). I kept asking the coach to do the hurdles, so I went over one and I left it alone the rest of 10th grade.’

He didn’t let it deter him from trying to hurdle a year later. He improved enough to earn a scholarship to Syracuse. Now with the indoor season behind him, he must deal with the new atmosphere of outdoor races, which includes more high hurdles and the intermediate hurdles, arguably the toughest race in track and field.

‘Whether he wants to admit or not, that first outdoor race looking at 10 hurdles can be a little intimidating,’ sprints coach Dave Hegland said of Sosa’s 14.80 clocking last week at the Hurricane Invitational in Coral Gables, Fla.

‘I know he’s itching to run (the intermediate hurdles). ‘He was sitting up there in the stands on Saturday watching them and I think it was killing him to not be out there running but I’m sure he’ll run it once and remember how much it hurts.’

Hegland said Sosa won’t run the intermediate hurdles until he’s completely healthy and has trained for them. In the meantime, Sosa will look to improve on his high hurdle time and run well in the relay. Marcus Vaughn, Aulton Kohn and DongWoo Shin will complete the team.

The four will combine to run one lap around the track, without hurdles. Sosa will soon have to run the entire lap with hurdles by himself.

He says Olympic gold medalist, Felix Sanchez is his favorite hurdler because he is a native of the Dominican Republic, where Sosa’s family is from. But whether it’s Sanchez or Sosa who falls, it’s still funny to their teammates.

‘Yea I think everybody got a kick out of it,’ Hegland said of Sosa’s fall at practice. ‘It wasn’t that bad of a fall.’

Published on March 22, 2005 at 12:00 pm