March 21, 2015
SAN ANTONIO – The Kentucky track and field teams won 10 events on Saturday, and completed Spring Break weekend with a total of 12 event wins, at the University of Texas-San Antonio Challenge Invitational.
The meet was a rare regular-season competition where team-scores were tabulated, with most of the participating squads using the weekend as an early-season test in a relatively warm-weather region of the country. Most teams’ NCAA Indoor Championship participants took the weekend off as that meet was held last week.
The UK women’s team won the meet with 168.5 points. The Kentucky men placed second to Texas Tech 175.5-122.5.
Kentucky had the top-3 finishers in the women’s discus, led by Madison Jacobs who tossed the disk 181-feet. 10 inches/55.43m, which was more than a three-foot personal best. Rebecca Famurewa launched the discus 172’4″/52.53m for second place and Adriana Brown threw it 160’5″/48.9m.
Famurewa won the shot put with a toss of 46’10.25″/14.28m. She won two events this weekend, having also won the hammer throw on Friday.
Kenyattia Hackworth and Sha’Keela Saunders – All-Americans in the indoor long jump at NCAAs a week ago – placed one-two in the long jump with respective jumps of 20’10.75″/6.37m and 20’2.5″/6.16m. Hackworth’s jump was an outdoor personal-best although she consistently jumped further than that this past indoor season.
Michael Patterson Jr. won the men’s triple jump with a wind-aided personal best of 50-feet/15.24m (+2.6 meters per second wind-assistance).
Kentucky finished one-two in the 400m as Jasmine Mitchell won in 53.59 and Angelica Whaley was second in 54.13. Mitchell’s time was a personal best.
Kentucky went one-two in the men’s 2k steeplechase. Mackay Wilson won in 5:53.97, Spencer Hrycay was second in 5:55.26.
Kentucky also went one-two in the women’s 2k steeplechase with Caroline McCaslin winning in 6:52.93 and Katy Kunc second in 7:02.05.
On Friday Raymond Dykstra opened the 2015 outdoor season with a javelin throw that traveled nearly two inches further than the distance it took for him to win the Southeastern Conference Championship last year.
Dykstra’s throw of 252 inches, one inch / 76.83 meters won him the javelin. Dykstra won the 2014 SEC Title with a throw of 250’10″/76.45m and went on to improve that mark to 251′ 8″/76.72m in a Silver Medal performance at the NCAA Championships last year.
And Dykstra wasn’t the only UK thrower who had a strong start to the outdoor season on Friday. Famurewa won the hammer throw with a best toss that came on her last attempt (196’07″/59.91m).
