Jan. 29, 2011
Results
URBANA, Ill. -
The Illinois State women's and men's track and field teams finished in second and third place, respectively, at the Illinois Intercollegiate Saturday in Urbana, Ill. The women's team took second with 131 points, while the men grabbed third with 79 points.
On the women's side, Illinois won the meet with 263 points. The Illini also won on the men's side with 255 points, while Eastern Illinois finished second with 149 points.
"We had a good weekend, but I am not going to say great. I thought our student-athletes competed hard, knowing that some of them have fought the flu this whole week, and we missed some workouts throughout the week," said head track and field coach Elvis Forde."We ran hard this weekend, jumped high and the throwers did well. At the midpoint in the season, we feel good about our performances and the only thing we still have some concerns about is how much practice we will get in with our short sprinters in the next couple of weeks."
Tia Harvey finished fourth in the 60-meter dash (7.66) and the 200-meter dash (25.30) during the meet. Alia McAfee took seventh place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 58.03, while Jenna Combs (59.48), Marissa Rader (1:01.08) and Becky Anderson (1:01.21) finished in 12th through 14th place, respectively.
Elsewhere on the track, Aisha Praught had a strong performance in the mile and won the event with a time of 4:59.30, while Jess Husted (5:08.87) finished fourth. Samantha Bluske won the 3,000-meter run with a personal-best time of 10:05.97, while Sade Sealy crossed the finish line in third place with a time of 1:34.39 in the 600-meter run.
In the women's field events, Amanda Albrecht won the high jump for the second-straight week with a personal-best jump of 5-10.47, while Rachelle Harbert took third in the pole vault after clearing a height of 11-9.73, which was also a personal-best mark. Lita Wynne finished second in the long jump with leap of 18-2.50.
Brittany Smith and Tori Ziegler dominated the shot put and the weight throw. Smith won the shot put with a mark of 52-5.92 and bested the weight throw with a toss of 62-7.57. Ziegler finished second in both the shot put (45-6.45) and weight throw (56-9.88).
On the men's side, Kendric Smith (8.25) took fifth place in the 60-meter hurdles. Ben Sparkman finished seventh in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.97, while Alex Roark took sixth place in the 400-meter dash with a personal-best time of 51.23 and was followed by Coty Kramer (51.40) in eighth place. Fabian Norgrove crossed the finish line in 1:21.04 for a second place in the 600-meter run.
The men's distance runners continued to do well, as John Navarro (4:14.41) finished third in the mile, while Jon Roberts (4:21.90) took fifth place. Blake Brooks took fourth place in the 3,000-meter run with a personal-best time of 8:40.49.
In field events, Drew Holl took fourth place in the high jump with a leap of 6-3.98. Tyler Knight finished second in the triple jump with a mark of
47-3.71, while Antoine Curry (20-2.91) was 10th in the long jump. Mike Ziegler cleared a personal-best height of 15-1.49 to finish seventh in the pole vault.
Still in men's field events, Curt Jensen was second in the shot put with a personal-best throw of 56-11.07, while Chris McIntyre (51-7.29) finished fifth followed by Anthony Wirth (49-11.60) in sixth place with a personal-best mark. Akil Mills finished third in the weight throw with a heave of
61-2.25.
"Despite the flu and some injuries this week, we have to say that it was a good weekend for us and hopefully we can get healthier over the next couple of weeks," said Forde. "We look forward to seeing our student athletes perform better these next few meets at Notre Dame and Iowa State."
The Redbirds will return to action next weekend Feb. 4-5, at the Meyo Invitational in South Bend, Ind., while other members of the track and field teams will stay in Normal, Ill., to compete in the Keck Ecumenical Indoors Saturday, Feb. 5.
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