Week 3 Recap

(Trayvon Bromell-Baylor)



This past weekend there were some great performances to witness. There were a lot of quality team meets around the country with ranked programs competing against one another. There was the headlining meet the Rod McCravy Memorial at Kentucky, the Notre Dame invitational and the Texas A&M Quadrangular. Each meet had athletes post some impressive marks. Let us review this weekend's top performances.

SPRINTS

As usual we will start off with the Sprints and America's next great sprint star sophomore Trayvon Bromell of Baylor. Bromell reaffirmed his status as up and coming star last outdoor season by setting an American junior record in the 100 meter dash with a time of 9.97. He had an average indoor season last year. This season he has gotten off to a rocket start to prove that last indoor season was a fluke. Bromell clocked in at 6.54 to set a meet record at the McCravy Memorial in Kentucky in the 60 meter dash. His time matches the top time in the country and puts him in perfect position to win the indoor 60 meter crown.

The most impressive long sprint performance came from Bralon Taplin of Texas A&M. Taplin put incredible distance between himself and the rest of the field. Taplin clocked in at 45.78 to win the 400 meter dash at the Texas A&M quadrangular. He ran that race with no one within a second of his time. Taplin is next in line to be apart of a great set of 400 meter runners at Texas A&M.

On the women's side Morolake Akinosun of Texas beat an impressive field in the women's 60 meter dash. The top three performers were all competing at the McCravy Memorial. After a solid start she could not be caught winning the race with an impressive 7.22. Jasmine  Todd of Oregon who still holds the nation's number 1 time finished second with a time of 7.26.

Her teammate sophomore Kendall Baisden also ran an impressive 400 meter race against a top tier field. Baisden clocked in at 51.81 to earn the nation's top mark. Fellow sophomore from Miami also ran an equally impressive race with a time of 51.82.

Cierra White of Texas Tech scorched the track in the women's 200 meter dash at Texas A&M. White defeated Ashton Purvis of A&M with a national leading time of 23.18.  White is coming an outstanding outdoor season and will be a force to reckon with this season.


FIELD EVENTS

The field events were hot this weekend all over. After the national record in the women's pole vault was broken twice last weekend many other field event athletes have decided to join in on the fun. In the triple jump youth was served at the McCravy Memorial. On the women's side Keturah Orji a freshman from Georgia set a indoor American junior record with her leap of 45-10 1/2. She surpassed the defending NCAA Champion Ciarra Brewer of Florida who also surpassed 45 feet with a mark of 45-2 1/4.

On the men's side it was all Florida. Defending outdoor triple jump champion Marquis Dendy of Florida made his season debut with a mark of 52-8 1/4, his freshman teammate Keandre Bates also made noise with a mark of 52-0. As great as their performances were the top performance in the country belongs to Matthew O'Neal of South Florida who leaped to 53'11 this past weekend to claim the top mark in the country.

In the women's pole vault Demi Payne of Stephen F. Austin again proved that she is the true number one in this event by setting the NCAA record again. Her mark of 15-7 is 6 inches better than the next performer in the NCAA.

In the men's shot put Ashinia Miller of Georgia had an impressive performance this past weekend at the McCravy memorial. Miller threw for a mark of 66-7 3/4. His performance put him atop the rankings in the country and continues the success in the throwing events at Georgia. Tori Bliss of LSU led all women throwers with a mark of 57-4 3/4 in the shot-put placing her in the top spot as well.

Georgia continued there impressive performance in the field events by winning both multi-event competitions at the McCravy memorial, the heptathlon and pentathlon. Kendall Williams winning the women's pentathlon with a total of 4,609 points, nearly 2,000 more than her closes competitor. Garrett  Scantling won the men's heptathlon over his teammate Maicel Ubo with a total 5,886 points while Ubo had 5,847. Teammate Devon Williams, the brother to Kendall Williams rounded out the top three to finish third with 5,538.


Distance

The distance event are starting to warm up. Many premier athletes made their indoor season. At Kentucky there was clearly no bigger name than that of Edward Cheserek of Oregon. Cheserek ran the 3,000 meter run in 7:49.56. He had a 5 second lead against the closest competitor his teammate Johnny Gregorek.

Cheserek's performance was only part of an extremely successful weekend for Oregon. Eric Jenkins led the team to a 1-2-3 sweep in the 5k with his winning time of 13:31.76. The Duck also had a 1-2 finish in the men's mile with Colby Alexander winning with a time of 4:00.84. Furthermore they claimed the men's distance medley relay with a time of 9:32.61 four seconds ahead of runner up Florida.

Dominque Scott of Arkansas won the women's mile in Kentucky with a impressive time of 4:32.48. She won her race convincingly with a 7 second margin. She also anchored the women's distance medley relay to a victory over Florida by more than 5 seconds.

At A&M Shelby Houlihan of Arizona State ran impressive 3,000 meter race that places her atop the NCAA by more 10 seconds. Houlihan almost going under 9 minutes with her winning time of 9:03.71.

4x400  Relay

The meet at Kentucky had a lot of impressive performances. However many of the top tier long sprinters did not compete in individual races. However they made up for it with two outstanding races. First the Florida women get things started off right by going 3:30 to break a school record in the first meet with a time of 3:29.58. Robin Reynolds ran a terrific lead off leg and Claudia Francis who transferred from Oregon ran an outstanding anchor leg to hold off Arkansas and Texas who both ran under 3:31.

The Florida men were without 200 meter champion Dedric Dukes who is out injured. However Florida has earned the moniker as 400 meter "U" because of their development and depth in the event. Nick Uruburu ran the 3rd leg this time and did an admirable job. Najee Glass ran an outstanding first leg that equated to 45.3 start. Arman Hall who ran the anchor leg had his work cut out for him with hard charging Vernon Norwood of LSU closing the gap and almost winning. The Gators broke the meet record with a time of 3:04.22 without Dedric Dukes. Their performance was quite impressive. It looks like it will be another great year for the 4x400 relay.

Another big meet will headline next weekend, it is the Razorback Invitational at the University of Arkansas. Many of the same teams will be at this meet along with Texas A&M. Expect more exciting performances and finishes.