Troy University Athletics
Day One of the NCAA Mideast Regional Concludes
5/25/2007 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
COLUMBIA, Mo. - O'Darien's Bassett's nagging quadricep and knee injuries were too much to overcome as night settled at the Audrey J. Walton Track Stadium on Friday. He failed to reach seven meters on any of his three jumps, thus ending his season short of an at-large bid to the National Championship in Sacramento. Bassett finished 29th at 6.94 meters (22-feet, 9.25-inches), seeing no improvement after his first jump.
Struggling with his approach speed after a two-week layoff in an attempt to heal, Bassett covered 6.89 (22-feet, 7.25-inches) and 6.91 meters (22-feet, 8-inches) on his final two attempts.
What we saw today is that there is no sure thing in athletics,” Director of Track Bob Lambert said. O'Darien was only about 80 percent today and he gave it everything he had. It was disappointing that his injures came at the end of the year.”
Michael Nichols also competed in the long jump, finishing 17th with a distance of 7.14 meters (23-feet, 5.25-inches) on his second attempt. He fouled on his first try, likely his best, and then covered 7.00 meters (22-feet, 11.75-inches) on his final try. The two jumps marked just the second and third ever over seven meters, trailing only his 7.46-meter qualifying mark at the Sun Belt Conference Championship.
On the track, Troy had a difficult day as all four entrants were eliminated during the preliminary round by virtue of not finishing in the top eight, which is required to advance to the final round of competition.
Senior Monique Johnson saw her collegiate career come to close in the preliminaries of the 100-meter hurdles. Her time of 14.00 seconds Friday matched her Sun Belt Conference preliminary time, but was only 19th-best during the regional.
Sophomore Lamar Hicks struggled to a time of 10.85 in his 100-meter prelim, just his eighth-best performance of the season which put him .40 off of a qualifying time for finals. In the women's half of the same race, sophomore Tawanna Meadows finished third in her heat and 12th overall with a time of 11.83. She was less than a tenth of a second away from advancing, but her finish places her in the at-large pool for NCAA Championship selection.
Redshirt freshman Matavis Madden, who doubles as Troy's mascot during football and basketball games, finished fifth in his 400-meter dash preliminary with a time of 48.41.
The 4x100 relay team featuring Hicks, Madden, Adrian Culbertson and Tevis Wells ran its second-best time of the season at 40.82 seconds, but finished over a half-second off the pace. They finished 17th, but still finished higher than their seeded 20th place.
Today we grew as a team and will be more prepared next year when the majority of these competitors return to regional competition, seasoned and ready to compete in the finals of their respective events,” Lambert added. It was an eye-opening experience for many of our young athletes and I'm sure they will take the lessons learned” and apply them throughout the entire training and competitive seasons next year."
The competition continues tomorrow with four more Trojans in action. Tiphanie Baker competes in the women's discus at 3:30, while Agata Cichoszewski and Juzil Rudolph take part in the triple jump 45 minutes later. Finally, sophomore Norman Austin, ranked 12th in the Mid-East Region, will compete in the men's javelin competition at 4:30 p.m.
