Troy University Athletics
Trojans Head to NCAA Mideast Regional with 13 Student-Athletes
5/24/2007 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
COLUMBIA, Mo. - For the majority of the collegiate track and field teams, the season came to a close two weeks ago at the respective conference championships. But for the nation's best of the best, including 13 Troy Trojans, the quest for a national championship begins this weekend. The Troy contingent is among 900 athletes competing at the Mideast Regional in Columbia, Mo., for berth at the national meet two weeks.
Including one alternate for the men's 4x100 relay team, the number of athletes is the highest ever entered for the Division I regionals. Invitations were extended based on certain qualifying marks or times obtained throughout the season.
One favorite among the Trojans is sophomore O'Darien Bassett, who came off the basketball court in March and proceeded to set school records in the long jump and triple jump during the season. His long jump of 7.88 meters (25-feet, 10.25-inches) at the ULM Warhawk Classic on April 28 is the best in the nation among collegiate competitors this year and ranks sixth among all American athletes. However, he has been bothered by a quadriceps strain and has already decided not to compete in the triple jump at regionals.
Sophomore Michael Nichols will join Bassett in the long jump, which takes place Friday at 5 p.m.
Another Trojan to watch is senior Monique Johnson, who set school and Sun Belt Conference records in the 100-meter Hurdles two weeks ago with a time of 13.41 seconds. She finished 19th at this event a year ago, but has cut over 0.2 seconds off last year's standard. Her chance at advancing to Sacramento for the finals begins with the preliminaries Friday at 4:30 p.m.
Sophomore Lamar Hicks and redshirt freshman Matavis Madden will pull double duty on Friday, running the 100-meter and 400-meter dashes, at 5 and 5:30 p.m., respectively. Before that, though, they join teammates Adrian Culbertson, Tevis Wells and alternate Burke Leonce in the first running event, the 4x100 relay at 3 p.m. They qualified with a time of 40.65 seconds in finishing fourth at the Sun Belt Conference Championship.
Tawanna Meadows, fresh off a silver medal-winning, school-record effort of 11.63 seconds at the league championship, will run the women's 100-meter dash at 5:10 p.m.
The best performances advance to the eight-person finals on Saturday. Four other Trojans have their events on Saturday as well. Tiphanie Baker earned automatic qualification into the regional discus competition by becoming the first freshman in Sun Belt history to win that event. Her competition begins at 3:30 p.m. 45 minutes later, Agata Cichoszewski and Juzil Rudolph take part in the triple jump. They finished third and fourth in that event at the league championship. Finally, sophomore Norman Austin is entered into the javelin competition at 4:30 p.m. He finished second at the SBC meet with a personal-best throw of 63.96 meters (209-feet, 10-inches).
We are as healthy as we have been all year,” Director of Track Bob Lambert said. The two days of warmups have indicated we are ready. We are excited. Our passes on the relay have been crisp and the starts from the blocks have been good. Norman (Austin) and Tiphanie (Baker) had good training days yesterday and today. As coaches we are done, now it is up to them. They have to go out and perform in their events.”
The top five in each event, and the top three relay teams, automatically advance to the NCAA Track and Field National Championship in Sacramento, Calif., June 6-9. The next seven finishers are placed into a pool for at-large consideration based on season-long performances.
