March 17, 2010
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky Track and Field team travels south for spring break to kick off the 2010 outdoor track and field season March 20th at the Black and Gold Challenge in Orlando, Fla.
The Wildcats will spend spring break week in central Florida where they will train during the week and enjoy the accommodations of a Disney resort before competing in the Black and Gold Challenge all day on Saturday.
University of Central Florida will play host of the meet. All events are scheduled to take place at the UCF Track and Field Complex with the first event beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday. A full event schedule and live meet results can be found at UCFathletics.com.
“This meet is an opportunity to make a transition from the indoor season to the outdoor season,” Coach James Thomas said. Traveling to Florida permits us to be outdoors and the goal is to get the outdoor competition rolling, it will be a full team effort.”
This will be the first outdoor meet of the season for the team, which closed the indoor season last weekend in Fayetteville, Ark., at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Seniors Ashley Muffet, Kristen Smith and Rondel Sorrillo all walked away from the championship meet with hardware and All-America honors. Sophomore Precious Nwokey and junior Sharif Webb were also added to the top honors list for their championship meet performances.
Women’s thrower Ashley Muffet won the second All-America honor of her career with a second-place finish in the women’s shot put. Muffet tossed her winning mark of 17.31m (56 feet, 9.5 inches) on her final attempt in the preliminary round.
Honored with the All-America title for the sixth time in his UK career, senior Rondel Sorrillo earned the title once again after he took 5th place in the men’s 60m dash. Sorrillo ran a time of 6.66.
Kristen Smith competed in the women’s weight throw where she finished in eighth place. Earning one point for the Wildcats with a throw of 19.86m (65 feet, 2 inches), Smith was named top honor of All-America for the first time in her career.
Precious Nwokey competed in the women’s pentathlon where she set a new personal record of 3,985 points. Nwokey missed point contention and a spot on the podium by a small margin of 70 points, finishing in 9th place. Nwokey earns the All-America title for being one of the top-eight finishers among U.S. citizens.
Sharif Webb competed in 800m run prelims but barely missed the 800m final by five-hundredths of a second. His time of 1:49.78 put him just slightly behind the eighth-place finisher’s qualifying time of 1:49.73. After the release of the final results Webb’s time was fast enough to earn him an All-America honor, having a top time among U.S. citizens.
For all of your UK Track and Field information visit www.UKathletics.com.
