Troy University Athletics
Schedule Changes for Coach O Invitational
4/23/2010 7:00:00 PM | Track & Field
TROY, Ala. - The Coach O Invitational has become a meet where records are broken and student-athletes qualify for the NCAA Region in their respective event. Just last season, there were nine different track records that were broken and all but two were by collegiate student-athletes.
However, the fastest race of the day on Saturday may be the one that track officials do to beat the anticipated severe weather. The Trojans host the 12th annual Coach O Invitational at the Jesse H. Colley Track/Soccer Complex, and changes have all ready been made to the schedule for the event. The meet will still start at 10 am with the women's hammer, with the field events being on a rolling schedule. The track events have been moved up to 10:30 am on Saturday, beginning with the 3000-meter steeplechase and the remainder of the events being on a rolling schedule.
Several Trojans will be in competition on Saturday beginning with the women's hammer and ending with the 4x400-meter relay. The Trojans will being the competition with six student-athletes in the women's hammer and end the day with three different teams running the men's 4x400-meter relay.
School recordholder Tiphanie Baker will see action in all three throwing events - discus, hammer and shot put - and senior Leander McKenzie making his season debut in the 100-meters and 200-meters.
Other student-athletes who will be competing in the meet include sophomore Caitlin Rohrbacher making her season debut in the women's pole vault competition, senior Lamontrey Stamper continuing his pursuit of the Troy record book in the long jump and triple jump, freshman Neko Freeman continuing his assault on the sprint record book and Ja-Courteny Alexander trying to run her way into Sun Belt Conference history.
For a complete listing of the student-athletes and which event they will be participating in, check the revised schedule posted at the top of the page. Several of those student-athletes will be competing in their final home event of their careers on Saturday and will be highlighted in the post-meet release.
The Trojans will send an entire team out onto the track for the meet this weekend with hopes of rising in the region rankings to earn a bid to the NCAA East Region in Greensboro later this season. In year's past, student-athletes were able to qualify for the NCAA Regionals with a perfomance base that could be achieved early in the season. The NCAA has gone to a new format this season, meaning there will be no standards for qualifying - instead there will be a hard field based upon regional ranking in each event to qualify for the NCAA Regionals.
