After months of preparation, hundreds of hours of hard work and gallons of sweat, most of the athletes on the 14th-ranked Longhorn men's track-and-field team had their season come to an end at last weekend's Midwest-Regional meet. However, a select few remain in Austin awaiting their final exam - the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Six individual performances led Texas to a fourth-place team finish, accumulating 56.25 points at Anderson Track and Field Complex May 28-29.
Sophomore Brendan Christian produced most of the publicity for Texas after his 10.11 prelim time in the 100-meter broke a 27-year-old record set by Johnny "Lam" Jones.
Christian continued his dominance on the track in the 200-meter race, posting a 20.19 time and all-together calculating 18 points for the Longhorns.
Senior Jermaine Cooper blew away the field at Anderson Track and Field Complex, bettering his 13.66 time set two weeks earlier in the 110-meter hurdles at the regional qualifying meet in Georgia by four-hundredths of a second.
"In between I was hitting hurdles, and that caused me to slow down," Cooper said. "I just adjusted my approach. It wasn't one of my better races, but at the same time, it's a win."
Jonas Hamm and Mark Floreani both qualified for the national championships in the distance races. Hamm posted a 3:50.57 to finish third in the 1,500-meter race, and Floreani posted a 9:07.91 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase to finish fourth.
A pair of field competitors punched their ticket to the Outdoor Championship with top-five finishes. Tom Engwall and Andra Manson finished third and fifth place in the javelin and high-jump, respectively, to solidify their season and accumulate points for the Longhorns.
The 2004 NCAA Outdoor championships will take place from June 9-12 in Austin.
Be the first to comment on this article!