Troy University Athletics
NCAA Championships Begin Wednesday
6/10/2008 5:00:00 AM | Track & Field
DES MOINES, Iowa - The chase for an individual NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship comes to a culmination for two Troy University student-athletes beginning Wednesday afternoon on the campus of Drake University.
After two days of training on the track, and at the long jump pit, Troy's Tawanna Meadows and O'Darien Bassett will begin their quest at 3:30 pm Wednesday afternoon for an individual NCAA championship.
Meadows comes into the meet as the 11th fastest woman at the NCAA Division I level and will be in a fast heat to open the qualifying portion of the NCAA Championships. The senior from Panama City, Fla. is listed in heat one, a heat in which Meadows has the third fastest time in the heat. The one advantage that Meadows will have, she will be running in lane four, a lane she has become accustomed to running in all season with her season-best time of 11.26 seconds. Meadows will be in the same heat with Alexandria Anderson of Texas (11.10 seconds), Porscha Lucas of Texas A&M (11.18 seconds) and Kenyanna Wilson of LSU (11.31 seconds). She and Wilson were head-to-head at the regionals in which Meadows slipped coming out of the blocks and narrowly missed falling, but came back to finish sixth just 0.003 seconds behind Wilson.
The NCAA will take the top three performances from each of the four heats, plus the next four fastest times into the semifinals to be run later on Wednesday night. Meadows has been named the Sun Belt Conference Outdoor Women's Performer of the Year in winning the conference championships in the 100-meters and 200-meters, and will look to qualify for the semifinals for the Trojans.
Meanwhile, Bassett will be competing in his first NCAA Championships after missing last season although he was ranked as the nation's top long jumper (missed due to injury). So far this season, Bassett is undefeated, winning the gold in each meet he has participated in. The last meet, the Mideast Region, Bassett set a new school record with a jump of 7.94 meters in winning the gold medal. At the NCAA Championships, Bassett will be jumping fifth in Flight One beginning at 3:30 on Wednesday. The NCAA will take the best 12 jumps from qualifying into the finals. Bassett has the fourth best jump in his flight, trailing only Reindell Cole of Cal State Northridge (8.17 meters), Matt Turner of Arizona State (7.96 meters) and Marlon Woods of Norfolk State (7.95 meters). He also has the eighth longest jump of the season coming into the meet.
The competition begins on Wednesday and will conclude on Saturday, live on CBS.
