Feb. 26, 2009
College Station, Texas. - Thursday and Friday will highlight the biggest test yet for the Missouri track and field squad this year, taking on the rest of the conference in the Big 12 Indoor Championships at Texas A&M.
Missouri will be represented by 52 athletes for this weekend's championships, and it will be a tough road for both the 23rd ranked men's squad and the women, with Texas A&M having a virtual home-track advantage.
The events will get underway Friday morning at 11 a.m. with the combined events with the women's pentathlon and start of the men's heptathlon. Leading the way for the Tigers in those events will be Nick Adcock, Kaela Rorvig, Lars Rise and Lauren Begany.
Expect another tight race in the heptathlon with Texas A&M's Trinity Otto looking to turn the tables after Adcock and Rise finished first and second in the Big 12-SEC Challenge.
Many of the preliminary running events will begin at 2 p.m. with the 60-meter hurdles, with the only running finals being the 5,000-meter run and distance medley relay. Expect names like Farmer, Brown, Leinert, Graybill, Davis and Dixon, among others, to all be in the running for Saturday's running finals.
Sandwiched between the combined and running events Friday afternoon, will be the throwing and jumping events. The weight throw, pole vault and long jump champions will be crowned on the day.
On the vault, Brian Hancock could make some noise after setting a Missouri indoor record with a 5.22-meter vault, while the duo of Garlich and Cooper will also compete.
In the long jump, JaNay Woolridge, Lana Mims and Asia Walker will take on some of the women's best, while Rick Scheff will participate on the men's side.
Rounding out the field events for the Tigers will be Chris Rohr and Krishna Lee in the weight throw. Both have stayed near the top of the list nationally in their events, and look to have solid performances on the Big 12's biggest stage.
Lee, the reigning female conference track and field athlete of the week, looks to improve on her second place performance from last week in the weight throw, while everyone will be looking to take out the lead dog in Rohr after automatically qualifying for the NCAA's with a throw of 22.71 meters in the ISU Classic two weeks ago.
Texas A&M is the defending women's champion, while Texas is the reigning men's team champion. All-session passes for both days are still available at three price levels -- general admission ($20), bronze ($25) and silver ($32). Single-day admission is also $20 for silver, $15 for bronze, $13 for adult GA and $8 for youth GA.
The Big 12 Indoor Championships will also be streamed live both days for free at big12sports.com.