Jan. 17, 2006

COLUMBIA, Mo.--On Friday, the track and field squads of Missouri, Kansas, and Kansas State will get together in Lawrence, Kan., for the 17^th annual triangular meeting between the teams. Kansas State has won each of the last seven meetings, but the winning-margin gap keeps getting closer as both Mizzou and Kansas will jockey for that top spot in the highly-competitive meet. The triangular is one of a very few in the country that combine both men's and women's scores to determine final standings.

 

A Quick Preview (by what we know) ...

Here's what we do know. The throws and middle-distance events will have much of our attention during the meet as in most of those events will have potential winners from all three teams.

 

First, the men's shot put. MU, KU, and KSU, all have occupants in the top three of the Big 12 performance list early in the season. Out of the gate, Tiger sophomore Nate Englin (Mounds View, Minn.) leads the conference with his 59 foot, 7 inch (18.16m) mark from last weekend's Missouri Invitational, but Big 12 Outdoor Champion, Kansas' Sheldon Battle is second with a 59-4¼ (18.09m) mark. Kansas State's senior T.J. Staab is third on the list at 59-1¼ (18.01m). Tiger senior Bill Hobson is fifth in the conference with a 57-8¼ throw.

 

Again, the three teams occupy the top three spots in the men's weight throw. Senior Coby Cost for the Wildcats and Battle for the Jayhawks already have bombs of over 66 feet in their season ledgers, but Tiger sophomore Tyler Dailey could pose a threat, having thrown 64-10 (19.76m) at last weekend's Missouri Invitational, posting a two-foot personal best. KSU's senior Ryan Creadick is fourth in the conference, and the Tigers occupy spots five thru seven in the conference as well with Englin, Bobby Musil, and Chris Rohr. All of your point scorers in the Big 12 Conference in the men's weight throw could possibly come from these three schools alone.

 

In the early trackwire.com's Dandy Dozen listing of the top 12 nationally-ranked athletes, Battle, Cost, and Dailey are in the top 10. Battle is listed fourth with the weight with Cost at sixth and Dailey at 10^th.

 

In the women's shot put, freshmen and sophomores will likely pose most of the threat. Kansas' frosh Stephanie Horton is fourth in the conference with a 47-1¾ early throw. K-State so far this season has been lead by sophomore Jenny Glodowski, she's thrown 47-1½. Freshman Tiger Krishna Lee (Kansas City, Mo.) and sophomore Elizabeth Robe (Waukesha, Wis.) are right there with them having thrown just an inch of 47 feet. Also in the mix is Tiger freshman Kendra Richardson (Boonville, Mo.), who has already posted a 46-foot plus toss.

 

KSU's sophomore Laci Heller is already three-and-half feet above the rest in the women's weight throw, but everything else seems up for grabs as Mizzou and the Wildcats occupy six of the top 10 spots in the early Big 12 performers list. Freshman Loren Groves for the `Cats is second, having thrown 60-8½. Missouri's Elisha Hunt (Linn, Mo.), threw 58-10¼ last weekend and will be a threat along with frosh Richardson and sophomore Denise Gilmore (Manhattan, Kan.)

 

The Tiger women swept each of the distance events from 800 to 3000 meters at last year's triangular and scoring like that for this year's meet could go a long way in a great Tiger showing. While we don't know entries until Friday, names to watch include Tiger senior Ashley Patten, freshman K-Stater Morgan Bonds, Tiger sophomore Trisa Nickoley, and KU senior Angela Pichardo in the middle-distance events.

 

On the men's side, names like Missouri juniors Marcus Mayes, Jimmie Jones, and Tipper O'Brien along with newcomer Blake Figgins and Kansas State's Christian Smith and Kansas' Paul Hefferon and Benson Chesang will all be mentioned at some point in what should be some very close races.

 

ESPN's Anderson Stops By Former Team

SportsCenter anchor John Anderson stopped by the Hearnes Fieldhouse on Monday and talked to the Tiger track team, a team he was a high jumper for in the late eighties. In his message, he gave much praise to Missouri coach Dr. Rick McGuire, saying, "Twenty years from now you'll look back on this experience and realize how special being on this team is and what role coach McGuire played with it." Anderson also realized that the team had a date in Kansas this upcoming weekend and gave the team some words of encouragement on the rivalry situation. Maybe, in part, to Anderson's appearance on the Mizzou campus Monday did the men's basketball team pull off an overtime, 89-86, thriller over the Jayhawks. Time will tell if it rubbed off on the track and field teams.

 

Schedule in Depth

If you haven't checked out the Tiger schedule ... here it is! Also note the meets on towards the bottom as many of the Tiger post-collegians will be running in those national-attention grabbing meets.

 

Note, next week's Reebok Boston Indoor Games will be on television on ESPN2 the day after, details next week.

 

Next week, we'll go in-depth with the current team's roster and breakdown their hometowns in our annual local digest.

 

Missouri Team Schedule
Date	Meet	Location
INDOOR
Jan 13	Missouri Invitational	Columbia, Mo.
Jan 20	MU-KU-KSU Triangular	Lawrence, Kan.
Jan 27-28	Kansas State Invitational	Manhattan, Kan.
Feb 3-4	Meyo Classic	South Bend, Ind.
Feb 10-11	Iowa State Classic	Ames, Iowa
Feb 18	Missouri All-Comers	Columbia, Mo.
Feb 24-25	Big 12 Indoor Championships	Lincoln, Neb.
Mar 4	Cyclone National Track & Field Qualifier	Ames, Iowa
Mar 10-11	NCAA Indoor Championships	Fayetteville, Ark.
OUTDOOR
Mar 25-26	Arizona State Invitational	Tempe, Ariz.
Mar 31-1	Missouri Relays	Columbia, Mo.
Apr 6-8	Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational	Los Angeles, Calif.
Apr 13-14	Audrey Walton Combined Events	Columbia, Mo.
Apr 14-15	Tom Botts Invitational	Columbia, Mo.
Apr 22	Cardinal Invitational	Louisville, Ky.
Apr 26-29	Drake Relays	Columbia, Mo.
May 6	Billy Hayes Invitational	Bloomington, Ind.
May 6	Ward Haylett Invitational	Manhattan, Kan.
May 12-14	Big 12 Championships	Waco, Texas
May 27-28	NCAA Mideast Regional	Knoxville, Tenn.
Jun 7-10	NCAA Championships	Sacramento, Calif.
Jun 22-25	AT&T USATF Championships -and-	Indianapolis, Ind.
	USATF Junior Championships
Post-Collegian Meets / Other Meets of Interest
Date	Meet	Location
INDOOR
Jan 28	Reebok Boston Indoor Games	Boston, Mass.
Feb 3	99th Millrose Games	New York, N.Y.
Feb 10	Tyson Invitational	Fayetteville, Ark.
Feb 24-26	AT&T USA Indoor Track & Field Championships	Boston, Mass.
Mar 4-5	USATF Indoor Combined Event Championships	Chapel Hill, N.C.
Mar 10-12	11th IAAF World Indoor Championships	Moscow, Russia
OUTDOOR
May 21	adidas Track Classic	Carson, Calif.
May 28	Nike Prefontaine Classic	Eugene, Ore.
Jun 3	Reebok Grand Prix	New York, N.Y.
Jul 1-2	EAA Combined Events Cup (second league)	Monzon, Spain
Aug 7-13	19th European Athletics Championships	Goteborg, Sweden
Aug 15-20	IAAF World Junior Championships	Beijing, China
Aug 25-26	NACAC Combined Events Championships	San Juan, Puerto Rico
Sep 4	ISTAF Berlin (IAAF Golden League Final)	Berlin, Germany
Sep 9-10	IAAF World Athletics Final	Stuttgart, Germany
Sep 16-17	IAAF World Cup	Athens, Greece