Duckworth, UK Men Ready to Make Noise at NCAA Championships
The Kentucky men’s track and field team heads to Eugene, Oregon, this week to compete in the NCAA Championships, and despite not being ranked among the nation’s Top 10 teams, the Wildcats are confident that they can make some noise, which could be a huge boost to the program. Kentucky is the 14th-ranked team in the country heading into the national meet. While the Top 20 ranking is nothing to be ashamed of, the Wildcats hope to surprise the opposition in Eugene.
Kentucky head coach Edrick Floréal is working with his team to make the final preparations before the competition begins on Wednesday.
“I think we’ve got a little bit more work to do,” Floréal said on Friday. “This time of the year, when you’re going to a championship, everybody is on edge and you’ve got things to adjust, you’ve got tweaks and those are the things that are the difference between breaking a collegiate record and not making the finals. I feel good about the potential and the training. I think we’ve got to embrace the challenge.”
Kentucky will have several opportunities to score throughout the meet. The Wildcats 4×100 relay team of Daniel Roberts, Dwight St. Hillaire, Fred Dorsey III and Timothy Duckworth will compete at the meet, and Roberts will also be in the 110m hurdles. Noah Castle will compete in the shot put and the discus, while Nikolas Huffman earned a spot in the shot put. Elijah Marta will be competing in the javelin, while Jacob Thomson will be making his third straight appearance in the 10k.
One of the athletes expected to compete for an individual national championship is Duckworth, the nation’s top-ranked decathlon competitor. Duckworth is heading into the meet with specific goals in mind.
“The first mentality is to win the (decathlon),” Duckworth said. “My confidence is high, there’s a few things that need to be tweaked, but I’m ready to roll.”
Duckworth, a senior from Phoenix, thinks he and his teammates can prove themselves this week.
“I’m excited, it’s the best guys’ team that we’ve brought (to nationals) since I’ve been here,” Duckworth said. “Between me, D-Rob and Dwight, we should be able to hit a lot of points there. Then, hopefully some of the other guys can step up, like some of our throwers who may not be ranked as high up maybe get some PRs, get into the points and we should have a chance of probably ranking the best that the guys’ team has.”
Duckworth and his teammates have positive momentum heading into this week’s championship.
“I think it’s really positive,” Duckworth said of the team’s attitude. “If we do what we are supposed to do, we can do some real damage. Nobody expects the Kentucky guys to be up there. If we do well, we could be and that would be really special, especially since it’s my senior year.”
Floréal has seen his men’s team make strides toward national relevance, but he knows the program still has some work to do.
“We’ve made some steps forward, but these are just small steps as to what we ultimately want to do,” the UK head coach said. “We want to challenge for NCAA Championships. To do that, there has to be a level of expectation on every athlete and the athletes have to recognize and embrace that. I think Dwight (St. Hillaire) and Tim (Duckworth) and Noah (Castle) and all these guys are embracing the challenge.”
As for how he thinks his team can do this week, Floré alis not making any predictions.
“They’re looking forward to going out there and doing something we haven’t done before,” Floréal said. “The goal for us, if we can get inside that Top 10, I’ll be happy as a clam. I think we can do a little bit better than that, but I don’t want to be too greedy.”
A Top 10 finish would validate the hard work that Floréal and his team have put it, and it would vault the program into a spot where it has never been before.
