Men's Track and Field preview: New Mexico Multi-Event Meet
AUSTIN, Texas -- Senior heptathlete Donovan Kilmartin begins his National Champion title defense as the nation's deepest heptathlon group will send four competitors to Albuquerque, N.M., for the inaugural Roger Cox Multi's and Dan DeHart Indoor Track and Field meet. The combined events (heptathlon, pentathlon) portion of the schedule will take place on Thursday-Friday, Jan. 25-26, at the newly constructed Albuquerque Convention Center, while the DeHart track meet will begin late Friday and continue through Saturday, Jan. 26. The men's heptathlon begins at noon CT on Thursday and 1:30 p.m. CT Friday. There will be 30 minutes between events. Thursday's events include the 60-meter dash, long jump, shot put and high jump. Friday's events are the 60-meter hurdles, pole vault, and 1,000-meter run. Live results will be available at . The four Longhorns entered in the meet -- Kilmartin (Eagle, Idaho); 2006 Junior National Champion and Track and Field News All-American Shawn Schmidt (Plano, Texas); and sophomores Dustin Bynum (Corpus Christi, Texas) and Andrew Webb (Midland, Texas) -- will compete in the heptathlon on Thursday and Friday only. Kilmartin is ranked No. 2 in the nation by the Dandy Dozen power ratings. The 2004 and 2006 NCAA Indoor national champion is one of four competitors rated in the D12, a list that predicts the top 12 NCAA indoor national finishers. 2006 NCAA Outdoor decathlon champion Jake Arnold from Arizona, No. 6 Arizona State's Joshua Kinnaman and No. 12 Colorado State's Kevin Johnson are also entered in the event. Kilmartin has competed in individual events prior to this meet as a tune-up for the high level of competition. Kilmartin ran 8.83 in the 60-meter hurdles and tossed 14.67-meters in the shot put. UT's travel party for the meet include Schmidt, who is entered in his first collegiate heptathlon competition, and Bynum and Webb, who are familiar with the venue that opened last year. Webb placed fifth and Bynum finished in seventh in the heptathlon at the 2006 New Mexico Multi's Event meet. Webb totaled 4,955 points while Bynum accumulated 4,785 points. The college teams competing this weekend include: Arizona, Arizona State, BYU (women only), Cal Poly (women only), California, Colorado State (multi's only), Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, Long Beach State, New Mexico, New Mexico State (women only), Texas (heptathlon only), Texas Tech, UT-San Antonio (women only), Wayland Baptist (NAIA - heptathlon only), Western State (D-II), Wyoming. The Albuquerque Convention Center opened in 2006 with a 200-meter Mondo oval with 60-degree banked turns and six 36-inch lanes. The straight is a panel system Mondo surface with eight 42-inch lanes, which is also the surface for the high jump. The pole vault, long jump and triple jump are on raised runways with Mondo surfacing. The throwing ring is a wood surface. The venue is very familiar and friendly to Longhorns' combined events competitors as current senior Trey Hardee (Birmingham, Ala.) rewrote the NCAA record books at the 2006 New Mexico Multi-Events Meet at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Hardee scored 6,208 points, eclipsing the NCAA record of 6,136 points set at the 2004 NCAA Championships by Kilmartin. UT is off to a good start this season, with six event wins through the first two meets. Juniors National Champion Leo Manzano (Marble Falls, Texas) and high jumper Joel Hargett (Conroe, Texas) opened the 2007 season at the NYC Gotham Cup (Jan. 12) with wins for Manzano in the 800-meter and as anchor leg of the 4x800-meter relay, and Hargett in the high jump. UT followed that performance sweeping the long and triple jump events, with wins by Hardee and junior Joseph Davis (San Antonio, Texas) at the Leonard Hilton Memorial Meet on Friday, Jan. 19.
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