COLLEGE STATION, Texas. – Kentucky will contest the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at Texas A&M’s Gilliam Indoor Stadium Friday and Saturday.
UK qualified 12 entries – 10 women’s and two men’s – into the Championships.
The fifth-ranked UK women’s team has the fourth most entries into the meet.
Coverage
ESPN3 will stream the meet live on March 10 starting at 6:25 p.m. ET and March 11 starting at 4:55 p.m. ET. The Championships be shown on ESPN2 as a condensed show on Sunday, March 12 starting at 7 p.m. ET.
Friday outlook
Tim Duckworth will open the meet on Friday at 1 p.m. ET in the 60m dash: the first event of the heptathlon in which he’s the No. 3-seed.
Kentucky will have six entries in running-event prelims on Friday, starting at 7 p.m.
UK’s only available points on Friday will be in the women’s long jump where Sha’Keela Saunders and Destiny Carter are entered. Saunders is the top seed.
Meet preface
Kentucky doubled its entries on both the men’s and women’s sides from a year ago.
The top-16 declared entries, and top-12 declared relay teams from marks recorded this season qualified for the Championships.
The top-eight scorers in each of the 17 events on the men’s and women’s sides will score points by virtue of their place finish on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
Saunders – the USTFCCA Southeast Region Field Athlete of the Year – was a double qualifier making it in the long jump and triple jump for the third year in a row.
Saunders claimed the NCAA Silver Medal in the long jump each of the last two seasons, and came back to score in the triple jump the next day. She enters the 2017 Championships as the top seed in the long jump having produced the No. 6 mark in collegiate history to win the Southeastern Conference last weekend, and the No. 14-seed in the triple jump.
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (60m hurdles and 200m) and Kianna Gray (60m and 200m) qualified in two events apiece also.
Camacho-Quinn – Southeast Region Track Athlete of the Year – qualified for her first NCAA Indoor Championships. She’s the reigning NCAA outdoor 100m hurdles champion, and is coming off the SEC title in the 60m hurdles after running a PR 8.02, which ranks her No. 6 nationally.
Camacho-Quinn scored in the 200m outdoors in 2016, and is ranked No. 10 in the country at that distance this season indoors (23.14). Gray is the No. 12 seed in the 200m (23.17) and the No. 13 seed in the 60m.
Javianne Oliver is the No. 2-seed in the 60 meters. She placed sixth in the 60m final last season.
Olivia Gruver is the No. 3 seed in the pole vault having cleared a PR 14’8.75”/4.49m to take bronze at SECs – the only two women to vault higher than Gruver this year are the top two seeds (Arkansas’ Alexis and Victoria Weeks).
Marie-Josée Ebwea-Bile is the No. 10-seed in the triple jump, and Destiny Carter is the No. 16-seed in the long jump.
Duckworth will compete in the NCAA Championships heptathlon for the second year in a row. He recorded a British record 6,006 points last month.
Duckworth will be joined by SEC 60m hurdles bronze medalist Nick Anderson as he qualified as the No. 13 seed in his best indoor event. The senior made the NCAA Indoor Championships for the first time. He claimed NCAA silver in the 110m hurdles last spring.
The complete list of participants to the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships is available here.
The Kentucky women’s team placed 12th at the NCAA Indoor Championships last season, while the men did not earn a team score.
UKTF at NCAA Indoor Championships Schedule
|
Friday, March 10
|
||
|
Time (ET) |
Event
|
UK Entry
|
|
1 p.m.
|
Heptathlon |
Tim |
|
7 p.m.
|
Women’s 60m |
Javianne Oliver, Kianna Gray |
|
7:50 p.m.
|
Women’s |
Jasmine |
|
8 p.m.
|
Men’s 60H |
Nick Anderson |
|
8:10 p.m.
|
Women’s |
Sha’Keela |
|
8:30 p.m.
|
Women’s 200m |
Camacho-Quinn, Gray |
|
Saturday, March 11
|
||
|
1 p.m.
|
Heptathlon |
Duckworth |
|
5 p.m.
|
Women’s |
Olivia |
|
5:20 p.m.
|
Women’s 60m |
TBD |
|
6 p.m.
|
Women’s |
TBD |
|
6 p.m.
|
Women’s TJ |
Marie-Josée Ebwea-Bile, Saunders |
|
6:10 p.m.
|
Men’s |
TBD |
|
6:40 p.m.
|
Women’s 200m |
TBD |
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