MEET INFORMATION AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
ABILENE – Abilene Christian's track and field teams will play host to the Oliver Jackson Twilight Meet Wednesday at Elmer Gray Stadium. This one-day event is the final chance for student-athletes to qualify for the NCAA Division II outdoor national championship meet.
Field events are scheduled to start at 1 p.m. with preliminary races in the short hurdles races and the 100 meters and 200 meters set to start at 3 p.m. Other running event finals are set for a 5 p.m. start.
Individual competitors and teams from Angelo State, West Texas A&M, Tarleton State, McMurry, Hardin-Simmons and Wylie Community College also are scheduled to compete along side several clubs. The Wildcats, meanwhile, are expected to enter their entire women's team and most of their men's.
Following last week's Lone Star Conference Championships, ACU has two NCAA automatic qualifiers on its roster: senior hammer thrower Baptiste Kerjean and senior triple jumper Amanda Ouedraogo, each of who ranks second nationally in their respective event.
Ouedraogo's best mark this season is a school record distance of 43-feet, 6 inches, while Kerjean's top throw measured 218-0. Both of their performances came at the Mt. SAC Relays.
A little further down the national performance list are several Wildcats ranked among the top 10, including freshman sprinter Johnathan Farquharson, senior heptathlete Cassie Brooks, javelin thrower Ameilia Mitchell, and conference champions Chloe Susset (steeplechase) and Andrew Hudson (discus). All of these competitors either are or should be close to a lock for nationals depending on how many entrants the NCAA decides to accept.
As for the Wildcats' additional 21 provisional qualifiers (and four relay teams), they will either need to add a few feet or shave off a few seconds at Wednesday's meet in order to join their teammates at nationals.
Among the Wildcat sprinters to keep a close watch on are Farquharson and Jordan Geary in the 200-meter dash as they're tied for 24th nationally with a season-best time of 21.23 seconds. This pair also is part of ACU's 23rd ranked 4x100-meter relay (40.78).
Indoor all-Americas Shennae Steele, Elea Diarra and Ayesha Rumble also will be entered among several events. Steele is currently ranked 15th in the 200m (24.04) and 38th in the 100m (12.00), while Diarra and Rumble are just inside the top-20 for the 400m and 800m. Diarra – the LSC indoor champion in the 400m – posted her season best time of 55.20 last week in Canyon. Rumble clocked a 2:11.08 at Mt. SAC.
In the men's 800m, senior Banjo Jaiyesimi could move into the top 15 if he's able to take two seconds of this year's season best and duplicate last year's personal record time of 1:50.46.
Sophomore Lexus Williams recently won her second outdoor conference title in the 100m hurdles with a season-best of 13.84 that ranks 14th, but she'll be entered into this race once again, as will freshman Jeremy Tatham in the 110m hurdles. Tatham just missed provisional qualifier status at LSCs by .11 seconds with his third-place and season best mark of 14.80.
Freshman Xavier King also won the 1,500-meter conference title last week in 3:58.61, but that mark in addition to his personal best of 3:54.42 are still a few seconds shy of reaching the provisional standard of 3:52.00.
Juniors Aaron Bynum, Lauren Hartwick, Shalaina Lakey and Tara Riley all will look to continue their climbs Wednesday in the throwing events. Bynum last weekend recorded two massive personal records in the discus (170-2) and javelin (194-3) to push him into the top-30 of each event, while Lakey's win in the hammer (175-9) moved her up to 16th place.
Hartwick finished as the runner-up to Lakey with a 25th-ranked throw of 170-4. Riley's best discus mark of 147-2 was recorded at the Bobcat Invitational in late March and ranks her 24th.
