January 20, 1999
Columbia, MO - The Missouri Track & Field team's schedule continues on Saturday as the team travels to Manhattan, Kansas for a triangular meet with Kansas State and Kansas. The indoor meet will be held at Ahearn Fieldhouse on the campus of Kansas State.
Missouri heads west after a season opening victory for the men and women at the Missouri Invitational in the Hearnes Fieldhouse. Kansas enters Saturday's meet after competeing in the Michigan Quadangular with Indiana, Michigan State, and the host school. Both the Jayhawk men and women finished in third place in Ann Arbor. Kansas State returns two All-Americans from its 1998 team: Nathan Leeper in the men's high jump and two-time Big 12 Champion, Renetta Seiler in the women's weight throw.
MU hosted the Kansas schools last year for the event and won a team victory. The event features a unique scoring system which combines men's and women's points to create one team score. Last year the Tiger team was the winner with 252.5 points. 1997 champion Kansas State finished second with 237 and Kansas ended at 227.5.
At the 1998 meet, 10 Tigers won their events in MU's victory. Both Ashley Wysong (600yd) and Derrick Peterson (1000m) set meet records in their victories. Wysong ran a 1:23.59 race to set the 600yd standard and Peterson set his matk with a 2:24.38, 1000m run.
Shanks, Miller Set MU Records
Two MU school records fell at Missouri's opening meet last Saturday. In the men's 35 lbs. weight throw, sophomore Micah Shanks bested his own school record mark of 50-4 with a 51-3 toss. Shanks finished in fourth place in th event and also recorded a second place finish in the shot put. In the women's triple jump, junior Lindsey Miller now owns both the indoor and outdoor school records after she broke the nearly nine-year old indoor record on saturday. Lindsey's 39-10 3/4 jump passed the mark set by felicia allen in 1990 by three inches.
Tigers Set Big 12 Bests
Missouri stamped its name at the top of the conference's season bests in 1999. In the men's 1,000m Derrick Peterson registered a time of 2:28.22 the top performace in the event by a Big 12 runner. Andy Rose, Timothy Dunne, Damien Smith, and Dan Dellegrazio notched the top time in the men's Distance Medley Relay thus far in 1999 at 10:28.50.
Ford Starts Season On A High
High jumper Adam Ford has worked through alot to get to the 1999 season. The senior from Cosby, Missouri has been through injury and surgery to be able to jump for the Tigers this year. At the Missouri Invitational Ford was not only able to jump well, but he won the event and provisionally qualified for the 1999 NCAA Championships when he leeped over the bar at 7-2. His jump was just an inch and a quarter off the school record and a great start to the season for the MU senior.
MISSOURI COACHING STAFF
Head coach Rick McGuire is in his 16th season at Mizzou. He came to Columbia in 1983 as the women's coach and assumed the men's team responsibilities as well in 1988. While at Mizzou, McGuire has coached come 47 All-Americans, two NCAA individual champions and 47 conference individual and relay champions. Assistant coach Jeff Pigg is in his nineth year at Missouri, coaching the distance runners and cross country teams. This past fall he led both the men's and women's cross country teams to the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history. Pigg is a three-time NCAA Midwest Region Cross Country Coach of the Year. Assistant Coach Natasha Brown is now in her sixth year as a full-time assistant coaching the Tiger sprinters. As a Mizzou athlete, Natasha was a six-time All-American and a five-time Big 8 champion. She also brings her experience from international competition as a silver mealist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and as a World Champion as a member of the 1,600m relay team at the 1993 World Championships. Assistant coach Brett Halter coaches MU's throwers for the second season as a full-time assistant, his sixth with the Missouri program. In just the last three years, Mizzou's throwers have established eight school records, have earned two conference championships and earned All-American honors three times.