Minnesota Track: Big Ten Championships

The Minnesota track and field team travels to Columbus, Ohio this weekend to compete in the Big Ten Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships.  The three day event will be hosted at the Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.  The Gophers look to double up as they have already won the indoor Big Ten Championship and look to win the outdoor which hasn't been done by a Gopher track team since 1998.  Minnesota has 18 athletes who have bettered qualifying standards to compete in the NCAA Midwest Region Championships.  R.J. McGinnis owns an automatic qualifier for the NCAA Championships in the decathlon.  The Gophers are ranked 17th in the polls with Florida ranked first. 

The Gophers have 4 athletes, Ibrahim Kabia, Hassan Mead, Chris Rombough and Hans Storvick seeking to defend their Big Ten Individual titles this weekend.  Storvick won the 800 meters in 2008 with a time of 1:50:06.  In the 100 meters Kabia won last season with a winning time of 10:29. 

The freshmen will be counted on this weekend as 11 of 34 athletes will be competing as either true freshmen or redshirt freshmen.  Five athletes from the freshmen class have qualifying marks for regionals, Trey Davis in the discus, Joe McFarland in the 800 meters, Matt Clauer in the high jump, Tyler Kleinhuizen in the shot put, and Andy Richardson in the 1500 meters.

The nations leading high jumper is junior Matt Fisher with a leap of 7-4 1/2 back on April 4th.  Washington State junior Trent Arrivey is tied with Fisher at that height as well.

Date of Article: Tue May 12, 2009 4:11 pm