Duckworth and Kunc Claim Bronze on SECTF Saturday

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Kentucky track and field seniors Timothy Duckworth and Katy Kunc picked up bronze medals on Saturday at the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships.
 
The Kentucky men’s team is tied with Auburn for sixth place with 18 points. Seven of 21 events are scored. Kentucky will have 14 scoring opportunities – five who had to qualify from preliminary races on Friday and Saturday – on Sunday.
 
The UK women’s team is in 12th place with just Katy Kunc’s six points recorded so far through seven of 21 events. UK will have 14 scoring opportunities – four who had to qualify from preliminary races the past two days – on Sunday.
 
SEC Network will broadcast Sunday’s SEC Championships finale live from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m.

Saturday medalists
Duckworth opened up Saturday with a massive long-jump mark of 26’10.5″/8.19m_w (+2.5) in the second round after a foul on his first attempt. It gave him the lead through the prelims and at the time was the best jump in the NCAA this year. He would end up claiming bronze to score six points.

Florida’s Grant Holloway took the lead in the fifth round with the top mark on the NCAA qualifiers list this season, 27’3.25″/8.32m_w (+2.9), and then Texas A&M’s Will Williams surpassed Duckworth on his sixth attempt 27’0.75″/8.25m_w (+3.8).
 
Duckworth, the current NCAA decathlon leader, who elected to compete in just the long jump and pole vault this weekend – perhaps looking to conserve energy for the open pole vault tomorrow, as well as a future decathlon as the postseason progresses over the next 30 days – elected to pass through the rest of his attempts. Duckworth claimed bronze in the SEC indoor long jump earlier this season.

Katy Kunc claimed bronze in the 3,000-meter steeplechase running a time of 10:06.37 to score six points.

The senior is now a six-time SEC medalist having won the steeplechase last year, taken bronze at the past two conference cross country championships and then having claimed silver in the 5k and bronze in the 3k indoors earlier this year.
 
Saturday scorer
Noah Castle picked up five points in the men’s shot put with more than a two-foot personal best, 63’1.5″/19.24m, moving to No. 5 on the UK all-time list. Nikolas Huffman finished one spot outside of scoring position, finishing ninth.
 
Saturday qualifiers
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn scorched the field in the women’s 100m hurdles prelims, tying her personal best 12.58Q (+1.6), which is the NCAA-leading time. The time is .08 off the SEC Championships record her training partner Kendra Harrison set as a Kentucky senior in 2015.

Teammate Jacklyn Howell had the third fastest qualifying time, 12.93Q to make the SEC final for the fourth year in a row.

Dwight St. Hillaire lowered his 400m school record in impressive fashion, running 45.08q out of lane eight. He had the fastest qualifying time of the non-heat-winners, fourth fastest overall from the heats.

Daniel Roberts passed UK Class of 2017 alumnus Nick Anderson for the school record, running 13.47Q (+1.0) to advance to the 110m hurdles final.

Benjamin Young won heat three of the men’s 1,500m prelims in 3:53.04Q. Kendall Muhammad also advanced to Sunday’s 20-man final, as he was involved in a nine-person pileup crass coming off the penultimate turn in heat two. Pretty much everyone who fell in heat two were advanced to the final, which was originally supposed to have 12 entries.
 
Friday scorers
Jacob Thomson finished fourth in the 10k with a time of 29:22.31 to score five points on Friday.

David Cline tossed a personal best 218’3″/66.53m to score a point by placing eighth. The time improved his mark as the No. 2 performer on the UK all-time list.
 
Ethan Shalaway scored Kentucky’s first point of the 2018 SEC Championships, placing eighth in the javelin with a mark of 212’1″/64.65m. Elijah Marta just missed scoring, placing eithth with a mark of 210’5″/64.14m.

Friday qualifiers
Sydney McLaughlin ran the fastest time in the 400m hurdles heats out of lane eight, a 54.85, that is the second fastest time recorded by a collegian this year. McLaughlin has the only faster time in the country, a 53.60 world U20 record two weeks ago, that is fourth fastest in collegiate history.

The 400m hurdles final is at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday.
 
Ian Jones advanced to the SEC 800m final for the second year in a row, running 1:50.57q to claim the last non-automatic qualifying place into the Sunday final.
 
Kianna Gray ran 22.92w (+2.4) to return to the SEC 200m final for the first time in two years.
 
Broadcast information
The SEC Championships will be streamed live on SECN+  Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The meet will air live on the SEC Network Sunday at 6 p.m. The broadcast talent includes Dwight Stones, Larra Overton, Jill Montgomery and John Anderson.

Saturday outlook
The meet continues 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The first Wildcats will compete on Sunday starting at 2:30 p.m. ET in the women’s high jump.

The first track event will be the women’s 4x100m relay starting at 6:02 p.m. All the running events will be finals.

SECTF precedent
The UK men’s and women’s teams have both finished as high as second at the SEC Outdoor Championships. The UK women’s team’s best finish was second place in 1981 (150 points.

The UK men’s team’s best SEC outdoor finish was second in 1971 with 114 points.

Last season the UK women’s team finished third, and the UK men’s team finished 11th at the SEC Outdoor Championships.
 
The defending SEC men’s champion is Texas A&M, which has captured two SEC crowns since joining the league. Tennessee has claimed a league-leading 25 SEC men’s titles. The defending SEC women’s champion is Arkansas, which has won each of the last four SEC crowns. LSU has claimed a league-leading 13 SEC women’s titles all-time.
 
Tickets are available for purchase at UTsports.com, with all-session passes $25 for adults and $10 for students.
 
UKTF returning SECTF Champions
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn won the SEC women’s 100-meter hurdles each of the past two years, while Katy Kunc is defending 3,000-meter steeplechase gold medalist.

Sydney McLaughlin won the SEC indoor 400m title earlier this year, but she’s entered in just the 400m hurdles this weekend. The freshman Phenom leads the nation in both events outdoors.

Reigning NCAA outdoor pole vault champion Olivia Gruver, who made her outdoor season debut last week, won the SEC indoor title in February.

Senior Jacob Thomson won the SEC indoor 5k earlier this season, and won the SEC outdoor 5k and 10k in 2016.

Conference Championship meets mark the last team athletes can record marks that qualify for the NCAA Preliminary Championships to be held Memorial Day weekend. There, they will look to advance to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, which will occur June 6-9 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
 
Rankings snapshot
The UK women’s team is ranked No. 5 in the nation, and the UK men’s team is ranked No. 13.
 
A total of 18 SEC men’s and women’s track and field teams are ranked among the nation’s top-25 teams, according to the latest national rankings announced Monday by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
 
A nation-leading eight SEC men’s programs are ranked in the top-25, including five of the top eight. Florida is ranked No. 1, Alabama is No. 3, Texas A&M is No. 5, Georgia is No. 6 and Arkansas is No. 8. Other SEC programs in the top-25 include No. 12 LSU, No. 13 Kentucky and No. 20 Mississippi State. No other conference has more than five men’s teams in the top-25.
 
A nation-best 10 SEC women’s programs are ranked in the top-25 with six in the top nine. LSU is No. 1, Arkansas is No. 4, Kentucky is No. 5, Georgia is No. 6, Texas A&M is No. 8 and Florida is No. 9. Other SEC teams ranked in the top-25 include No. 15 Tennessee, No. 17 Alabama, No. 18 Missouri and No. 23 Ole Miss. No other conference has more than five women’s teams in the top-25.
 
SEC men’s and women’s track and field athletes lead the nation in 19 individual events entering this weekend’s SEC Championships.
 
Wildcats leading the nation in individual events are McLaughlin in the 400 meters and 400m hurdles (she’s ranked second in the 200m).
 
Camacho-Quinn has the No. 1 time on the NCAA Championships qualifying list (tailwinds slower than 4.0 meters/second), a 12.53w (+2.6) at the National Relays two weeks ago.
 
UK’s women’s 4x400m relay of Ross, Camacho-Quinn, McLaughlin and Kayelle Clarke that ran 3:26.92 has the top time in the country this year.

Timothy Duckworth has the top decathlon score in the NCAA this season, 8,145 in early April. He won’t compete in the decathlon this week, electing instead to just long jump and pole vault – two events in which he’s scored in at multiple SEC Championships before.
 
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Sunday – Track

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Friday – Track