Troy University Athletics
Troy Finishes Strong at SBC Outdoors
5/11/2008 5:00:00 AM | Track & Field
** Post-meet notes will
be posted with new regional times on Tuesday **
DENTON, Texas ? Tawanna Meadows won a pair of gold medals, and both the men's and
women's track & field programs finished strong at the
The women
finished the meet fourth with a total of 101 points; finishing behind Western
Kentucky,
Meanwhile,
the men finished the meet third with a total of 99.50 points, finishing behind
Meadows has been named as the Sun Belt Conference Women's Most Outstanding Performer for the year 2008.
Meadows, the
anchor leg of the 4x100-meter relay team, responded to her team's mishap in the
relay event with a time of 11.27 seconds in the 100-meter dash to win the
The senior
then came back less than 45 minutes later and won the 200-meter dash easily,
running away from the field in a time of 23.35 seconds to capture her second
gold medal of the championships.
Lamar Hicks, who had run the fastest time in
the
In the other
running events on Sunday evening, the women's 4x100-meter relay team finished
third overall with a time of 45.71 seconds.
Meanwhile, on the men's side, the 4x100-meter relay team overcame a bad
hand-off in the first exchange zone to finish fourth overall with a time of
40.97 seconds.
In individual
events, Leander McKenzie finished
second in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.17 seconds, battling the top
two runners of the conference down the stretch to earn the silver medal. Meanwhile, Porsche Holden won the bronze medal with a time of 14.40 seconds in
the 100-meter hurdles.
Desmond Brown finished third, his best finish of
the season, in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 52.95 seconds. The senior led most of the race and finished
less than a second away from capturing the gold medal in the event.
On the
final day of competition, the Trojans received a pleasant surprise in the pole
vault, when all three vaulters scored to push them further up the ladder. Joseph Callaway matched his career-best, clearing 4.60 meters and finishing
fourth. Teammates Grant Bullington and Jeremy Cline finished sixth and seventh to total 10 points for the Trojans in the
event.
Agata Cichoszewska won a silver medal on the final day
of competition in the the triple jump.
She was able to better her career mark in the event with a distance of
12.69 meters, and narrowly missed setting a school mark by less than
one-quarter of an inch (set in 2003). On
the men's side of the triple jump, junior O'Darien
Bassett competed in his first triple jump of the season and won the silver
medal. He jumped a NCAA Regional
qualifying distance of 15.47 meters on his very first attempt, before passing
into the finals. The medal was the
second of the meet for Bassett.
Lamontrey Stamper also qualified for the NCAA
Regionals in the long jump with a jump of 7.50 meters, which placed him fifth
in the event.
The medals
continued to add up for the Trojans as Norman Austin collected the fourth silver medal for the Trojans and seventh
overall in the javelin.
The second
day of the championships can be commonly referred to as “Moving Day” with the
majority of the running events taking place as preliminaries, and the top
runners moving into the finals.
Meadows ran
a time of 11.13 seconds in the 100-meter preliminaries, missing the A-Standard
for the United State Olympic Trials by 0.2 miles per hour on the wind
gage. The wind reading came back at 4.2,
and needed to stay under 4.0 to be a legal run for the Trials. The time ran by Meadows in the 100-meter dash
also broke the
She came
back later in the evening to run a time of 23.14 seconds in the 200-meter dash
to break the school record in that event, also meeting the B-Standard for the
United State Olympic Trials in the event.
Meanwhile,
Hicks ran a new PR in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.34 seconds ? the
fastest time in the
Senior Juzil Rudolph earned the first gold
medal of the championships by winning the grueling heptathlon on Saturday
afternoon. Competing in seven events,
Rudolph was able to win the long jump and the javelin to ease into the final
event on the afternoon. She finished
sixth in the 800-meter run, earning 4,912 points and winning her second
consecutive
Also on
Saturday, Bassett won the gold medal in the long jump on his first attempt in
the event. Bassett jumped 7.90 meters on
his first jump of the competition, and held on to win the gold medal in the
event. It is the second consecutive
season that Bassett has won the gold medal in the long jump.
The Trojans
captured a silver medal and a bronze medal on the first day of competition in
the women's discus, but scored points in three different positions. Junior Monique
Jordan scored the biggest throw of the day for the Trojans, throwing the
discus a distance of 45.98 meters and gaining eight points for her team. Meanwhile, her teammate, senior Shenita Howell finished third with a
throw of 45.76 meters and scored six points and the bronze medal. Sophomore Tiphanie Baker, last year's champion, finished fourth in the
competition with a throw of 44.81 meters and scored five points for the
Trojans.
