Men's Track and Field lands one relay, five individual NCAA Indoor qualifiers
INDIANAPOLIS -- The University of Texas men's track and field will send seven strong candidates for individual and team championships to the 2007 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship at the Randal Tyson Track and Field Center in Fayetteville, Ark., from Friday-Saturday, Mar. 9-10. Four of Texas' six NCAA qualifying marks lead the nation. Two-time national champion and senior Andra Manson (Brenham, Texas) has the country's best high jump mark (2.33-meters) and seventh highest height in the nation this year. Fellow senior and defending national champion Donovan Kilmartin (Eagle, Idaho) has the most points in the heptathlon (5,870 points) among all entered qualifiers. Junior Leo Manzano (Marble Falls, Texas) is the top miler, one of four NCAA Division I student-athletes to run under four minutes, and the only automatic qualifier in his event this year with his school record time of 3:58.74. Manzano also anchors the country's speediest distance medley relay (9:31.27) that set a UT-school record in winning the Alex Wilson Invitational last weekend. Seniors Darren Brown (Spring, Texas) and Hamza Deyaf (Plano, Texas), and junior Jacob Hernandez (Magnolia, Texas) run the 1,200-meter, 400-meter, and 800-meter segments of the race. Brown and Deyaf have run on three combined DMR teams on UT's all-time top 10 performances list. Hernandez added his name to the record books as he ran the third fastest 800-meter time in UT school history at the Alex Wilson Invitational on Saturday, Mar. 3. Senior Trey Hardee (Birmingham, Ala.) is ranked fourth in the nation in the long jump and tied for ninth in the 60-meter hurdles. The returning long jump All-American and national champion decathlete automatically qualified in winning the long jump in Fayetteville last weekend (7.85-meters at Arkansas Last Chance Meet) and provisionally qualified in the short hurdles with a season-best 7.76 at 2007 Big 12 Championships. In 2006, Texas finished with 35 points, marking its highest point total at the NCAA indoor meet. The fourth-place effort tied UT's all-time highest performance as the Longhorns tallied 31 points in equaling the team finish in 2004. Returning athletes Kilmartin, Hardee, Manson, Manzano and the DMR scored points towards UT's historical finish.
|
|
