Gray and Roberts Advance on Friday at NCAA Indoor

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.  – Kianna Gray advanced to the women’s women’s 60-meter dash final and Daniel Roberts made the men’s 60m hurdles final as notable results for Kentucky on Friday at the NCAA Indoor Championships inside the Birmingham Crossplex.
 
Noah Castle placed ninth, a spot out of scoring position, in the men’s shot put. He tossed an indoor personal best 64’3.25″/19.59m to move to No. 3 on the UK indoor all-time list alone.
 
His first attempt was his best mark of the six-throw series. Castle’s mark came up 3.25 inches shy of the eighth-place last scoring spot.
 
Friday qualifiers
Gray made the 60m final with the sixth fastest time of the prelims, 7.26q, .01 second off her PB. That final will run at 6:10 p.m. ET (5.10 CT – local) on Saturday.
 
Roberts advanced to the first NCAA final of his career, running the third fastest time of the 60m hurdles prelims, 7.65Q, second in his heat to earn an automatic advancing place. The junior will run the final at 5:40 p.m. ET on Saturday.
 
Other Friday results
Freshman Abby Steiner ran 23.58 in the women’s 200m prelims, 14th fastest. She did not advance.
 
Faith Ross ran 8.25 in the 60m hurdles, 16th fastest in the prelims, not enough to advance.
 
Ross and Steiner will run with Chloe Abbott and Masai Russell in the women’s 4x400m relay on Saturday at 7:40 p.m. ET.
 
Ellen Ekholm will start Saturday for UK in the women’s high jump at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday. Marie-Josée Ebwea-Bile Excel is in the triple jump at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Meet primer
ESPN3 will stream the championships live starting at 5 p.m. Eastern time Saturday. A re-air of the championship will take place starting at 10 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, March 10 on ESPN2 and again Monday, March 11 starting at 10 p.m. Eastern time on ESPNU.
 
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. The team with the most points at the end of the meet wins.
 
The UK women’s team placed third (a school record indoors) with 34 points and the men’s team was T-17th on 12 points at the 2018 NCAA Indoor Championships.

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