Jan. 17, 2007

COLUMBIA, Mo.--Missouri track and field continues their 2007 indoor season on Saturday and will compete with Nebraska and Kansas State to form Team Big 12 in the Big 12-Mountain West Challenge to be held in Lincoln, Neb. The Big 12 squad will face Air Force and Colorado State from the Mountain West in the unique and interesting meet. Also, some Tigers will compete in the Nebraska Wesleyan Invitational to be held immediately following the Big 12-MWC meet.

 

 

Events 2 Watch 4 ...

Before each meet we will attempt to pick our top-five events to watch for at the upcoming meet. Yes, all events are important and each has its own storyline, but these are the picks-of-the-litter this week:

 

Women's Weight Throw

There will be several 20-lb. metallic objects flying over 60 feet in the women's weight throw. Although K-State's Loren Groves, who leads the Big 12 with a 67-10¼ mark, is not entered, the next four on the performers list are onboard. Including Mizzou's Elisha Hunt who broke her own school record in the event a week ago with a year-opener of 64-¼ (19.51m). K-State junior Laci Heller is currently second in the Big 12 with a 65-½ mark from two weeks ago and has a personal best of 66-3. Wildcat senior Ashleigh Rogers marked 61-1½ to begin the season in December and is fourth in the Big 12. Tiger sophomore Krishna Lee grabbed a personal best mark of 59-10¼ (18.24m) last weekend at the Missouri and is fifth in the Big 12. Also, yet to throw so far this season, Nebraska junior Tamara Solari, has landed a 61-10¼ mark in her career.

 

Men's 1000-meter Run

Missouri's Marcus Mayes and Brian Graybill will have an interesting field to face in the men's 1000. Mayes (Sand Springs, Okla.), a senior, will run the 1000-meter race for only the fourth time in his career and for the first time on a banked course. Mayes reached the NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2006 at 800 meters.

 

Scheduled to run includes Nebraska's Peter van der Westhuizen, a native of South Africa, who finished fifth in the Big 12 Indoor in the event a year ago with a 2:23.52 clocking, having made the NCAA Championships in the 1500-meter run in 2004. Air Force's Kevin Hawkins has ran 1:49.32 at 800 meters and Colorado State's Bryan Dillon has run the Mile in 4:09.81.

 

Men's Weight Throw

Mizzou's Chris Rohr who leads the Big 12 in the event in the early going is not entered in the men's weight, but that won't detract from a good competition. Among the field, Colorado State's Trey Eder opened the season last weekend with a 65-6 mark and finished second in the Mountain West Indoor Championships a year ago in the event. Add in Nerbaska's Issar Yazhbin who is second in the Big 12 currently with a 63-11 mark and Mizzou's Bobby Musil (62-4 season best, 65-11½ personal best) and Jason Morris (61-2 season best, 64-2½ personal best) and you've got a pretty good field.

 

Women's Mile Run

The women's Mile features two Tiger up-and-comers, junior Kasey Kimball and sophomore Ellen Ries. Kimball finished fifth at the Big 12 Indoor a year ago in the Mile and sixth outdoors in the 1500 and carries a personal best in the event of 4:51.90. Ries has run 2:10.57 at 800 meters and could sneak into the pack with a good race.

 

Kelly Robinson of Air Force enters with a 4:53.16 personal best in the event. Nebraska's Jennifer Pancoast is a 4:50.74 miler and finshed seventh in the event indoors a year ago. Lillani Mendez of Kansas State holds the Puerto Rican national record in the event with a 4:51.90 clocking.

 

Kimball, Ries, and Nebraska's Pancoast are also entered in the 800-meter race. Kansas State's Morgan Bonds would be the early favorite in the half-mile, having ran a personal best last weekend at the Arkansas Invitational with a 2:07.87 clocking.

 

Women's Shot Put

One of the better competitions of the day should be the women's shot put. While still early in the season and two of the top Big 12's newcomers are yet to have thrown this season yet (Texas' Michelle Carter and Texas A&M's Kasey Onwchekwa), the challenge will feature the top three on the current Big 12 performers list in Nebraska's Jen Steiner, and Missouri's Shernelle Nicholls and Krishna Lee.

 

Nicholls opened the season with a 49-7¾ mark and Lee opened with a 48-8¾ throw last weekend, more on that below. Steiner opened with a 49-8½ mark last weekend and has a personal best of 51-4½.

 

Upon Further Review ... Missouri Invitational ...

Some of the best things in life initially get missed ...

Junior transfer Hedvig Glomsroed made a quick mark on her impact on the Missouri program last Friday at the Missouri Invitational, breaking the school's women triple jump record in her first time in a Mizzou uniform. Glomsroed just returned from Norway on a 44-hour trip two days prior and experienced limited training up until her jumps on Friday. But, she made the most of her time, leaping to 39-11½ (12.18m) in her second jump of the competition to break Lindsey Miller's 1999 indoor school record. Hedvig, the 2006 Norwegian Indoor Champion in the event, repeated the exact mark on her third attempt, and passed the final three jumps because Friday's meet was supposed to be more-or-less a shake-out. Pretty good for "shake-out".

 

Another transfer, Shernelle Nicholls already placed herself second all-time at Missouri in the women's shot put. Nicholls opened the season with a throw of 49-7¾ (15.13m) to jump the spot on Mizzou's all-time list. Nicholls also added to her personal best in the weight throw with a 58-1¼ mark. Although her home country of Barbados does not list an official national record for the event, statistical services list Nicholls as having the national record in the women's weight. How `bout that?

 

Keeping with the women's throws area, sophomore Krishna Lee (Kansas City, Mo.) added two foot to her personal best in the women's weight at last week's meet to 59-10¼ (18.24m). Her mark pushed former Tiger Ann Snider out of the top five all-time at Missouri, pretty amazing considering Snider held the school record in January 2004, showing the advancement of Missouri in the event.

 

Senior Will Drover (Camdenton, Mo.) won his first career men's pole vault competition last weekend. His best clearance of 15-7, which was also freshman Brian Hancock's best mark, ties the duo for fourth in the conference in the early-season marks.

 

Rohr Ranked Ninth in Trackwire's National Dandy Dozen

Sophomore Chris Rohr (Lee's Summit, Mo.) is ranked ninth in Trackwire's National Dandy Dozen in the men's weight throw. Rohr, an All-American as a freshman in the event a year ago, opened the season with an impressive 67-2¼ (20.48m) mark last weekend, which also currently leads the Big 12. While Rohr is only entered in the shot put for the Big 12-Moutain West Challenge, he is also entered in the weight throw for the Nebraska Wesleyan Invitational to be held shortly after.

 

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