UK to Begin NCAA Outdoor Championships

By Jacob Most

June 10, 2014 –

Meet Central

EUGENE, Ore. – The 2014 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships commence for the fifth-ranked Kentucky women and the No. 17 men at Historic Hayward Field on Wednesday.

The UK women’s team enters the meet tied for the second most entries with 16, while four men qualified for the Championships.

The Wildcats are scheduled to send eight (seven women, one man) entries into competition on Wednesday beginning with the women’s 4x100m relay semifinal and the women’s long jump prelims and finals at 7:15 p.m. ET.

UK enters the NCAA Championships with three athletes who have the top time/mark their respective events this year.

“The expectations are always high,” head coach Edrick Floréal said. “We just want to go into the meet and do what we’ve done so far this season at the very least, but you always expect that things might change a little bit. People might get excited, and people might get nervous. We just want to try to get the best out of them.”

Kendra Harrison will be the first of those athletes to compete as she will start her week with the 400m hurdles semifinal heats. Harrison has a NCAA-leading and world No. 4 time of 54.76, which she ran to win the Southeastern Conference Championship two weeks ago.

Andrew Evans has the top discus throw by any American this season (No. 7 in the world), a mark of 217-9/66.37m, and he will compete in that event of Friday.

Harrison won the SEC 100 and 400m hurdles, and Evans won the SEC discus. Both Harrison and Evans were named Southeast Region Athlete of the Year on Monday.

Raymond Dykstra has the top collegiate mark in the javelin this season as his SEC-winning throw travelled 250-10/78.45m.

The UK men finished 18^th with 15 points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships last season. The women did not score.