UKTF’s Men’s Team Totals Nine NCAA Championships Qualifiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Kentucky men’s track and field added seven more NCAA Championships qualifiers for nine total qualifiers on day three of NCAA Division I East Preliminary Championships at Indiana University. 

Dwight St. Hillaire, Lance Lang, Kennedy Lightner, Brian Faust, Kenroy Williams, Jacob Smith and Rodney Heath Jr. Qualified for NCAAs in sprint and hurdle events on Friday, joining Josh Sobota and Keaton Daniel that qualified on Wednesday. 

Nine Wildcats on the women’s team qualified for Saturday’s running event quarterfinals, while one, Jade Gates, has already punched her ticket to Eugene. 

To qualify for quarterfinals, a competitor must place in the top 24 during the first round, and then the top 12 in quarterfinals qualify for NCAA Championships. 

On the women’s side, Jade Gates has qualified in the hammer throw with one more day of competition left. 

Day Three 

The men’s 4x400m was the highlight of the day, finishing with the fourth fastest time of the field (3:03.28) and winning their heat to automatically qualify for NCAA Championships. The relay featured St. Hillaire, Lang, Lightner and Faust. 

St. Hillaire and Faust also secured spots in the 400m semifinal at NCAAs, finishing seventh (45.63) and 11th (45.94) in quarterfinals. St. Hillaire earned an automatic qualifying spot by placing third in his heat while Faust qualified based off his time, which was also an outdoor personal best for the Purdue transfer. 

The men’s 4x100m featuring Heath Jr., Lang, Smith and St. Hillaire earned an automatic qualification by placing third in their heat with a time of 39.33 with the seventh fastest time overall among the field. 

Kenroy Williams earned his second outdoor nationals-berth in a row in the 400m hurdles (50.96). 

Lang took the final qualifying spot in the 200m with a time of 20.71 (-2.5), earning a spot in the event at NCAAs for the second year in a row. Lightner also competed in the event, placing 19th with a time of 21.00 (-2.5). 

Sobota and Rahman Minor narrowly missed qualifying for NCAAs by placing 14th in discus and 15th in high jump, respectively. Sobota will make the trip to Eugene to compete in shot put. 

Rodney Heath Jr. ran 10.34 in the 100m quarterfinal to finish 18th while Lang ran 10.38, finishing 21st. 

Day Two 

Gates is headed to Eugene for the first time in her career after an impressive 215’5″/65.66m on her first hammer throw of the day, qualifying with the ninth-best throw of the competition. Molly Leppelmeier also competed in hammer throw, narrowly missing NCAA qualification by one spot with a mark of 209’11″/63.98m. 

Abby Steiner earned the 200m facility record for the Robert C. Haugh Complex with a 22.19-second run, taking the top qualifying spot for Saturday’s quarterfinals. 

Her 100m run of 10.99 with a 2.5 m/s tailwind was under the existing facility record, but the tailwind made the run ineligible for the record. It was also the top time of the first round. 

However, the senior from Ohio did run the facility record in the 200m and will compete in both event quarterfinals on Saturday. 

Alexis Holmes ran the second fastest 400m in the first round with a time of 51.64 and will be joined by teammate Megan Moss in Saturday’s quarterfinal, who also qualified for the event in the No. 7 spot with a season best time of 51.14. 

Masai Russell took the third qualifying spot in the 100m hurdles with a time of 12.84 into a 1.5 m/s headwind, automatically qualifying by winning her heat. She also competed in the 400m hurdles and won her heat to automatically qualify (57.98). 

The trio of 800m runners, Jenna Schwinghamer, Jenna Gearing and DeAnna Martin, all qualified for Saturday’s quarterfinals. Schwinghamer had the fastest time of the bunch, running 2:04.65 in second place in her heat, earning the automatic qualification. Gearing was next, qualifying based off time as the fourth finisher (2:05.45) in the third heat. Martin took the final qualifying spot of the field (2:06.01). 

Siobhan Szerencsits and Annika Williams both narrowly missed qualifying in pole vault and long jump, respectively, finishing 17th and 15th in the first round. Szerencsits cleared an outdoor season best of 13’9.75″/4.21m. 

Day One 

Daniel punched his ticket to Eugene with a vault of 7’4.25″/5.29m and will compete for the chance to medal at NCAAs for the second year in a row. 

Sobota threw for an outdoor personal best and qualifying mark of 65’9.75″/20.06m in the shot put, making this his second year in a row qualifying for NCAAs in the event. It was also his third best shot-put throw of his career. 

St. Hillaire and Brian Faust impressed in the men’s 400m first round with the ninth (46.12) and 12th (46.22) fastest times of the group, respectively. 

Williams ran 50.55 for the eighth fastest time out of 48 qualifiers and will run in Friday’s quarterfinal. Beck O’Daniel finished 35th with a time of 52.41. 

Tai Brown ran 13.69 with a 2 m/s tailwind, placing third in his heat and automatically qualifying for Friday’s quarterfinal. 

Lang qualified for quarterfinals in both the 100m and the 200m. His 200m time of 20.39w (+2.3) earned him the eighth fastest spot among the 48 competitors and qualified in the 100m with a time of 10.27. 

Heath Jr. joined Lang in qualifying for 100m quarterfinals, finishing third in his heat to automatically qualify with a time of 10.38. 

Matt Peare narrowly missed qualification in the pole vault, finishing 13th after coming up just short in a jump off. 

Meet Information 

Thirty-four Wildcats, 19 from the women’s team and 16 from the men’s team, made the trip to Bloomington and are competing for an NCAA Championships berth. The women are set to conclude the competion on Saturday. 

East preliminaries feature the top 48 in the eastern region in each event with the top 12 in each event qualifying for NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon. The rules are the same for the western preliminaries: the top 12 move on to Eugene. 

Live results can be found at flashresults.ncaa.com and Indiana University is running a live stream of the event on their website. 

The first event on Friday is the men’s discus and the last is the men’s 4x400m at 8:45 p.m. Saturday’s schedule is the same but with women’s events. 

Below is a list of student-athletes competing in the meet along with the events they qualified for. 

Women: 

• Shadajah Ballard – 100m, 100m hurdles, 4x100m 

• Perri Bockrath – 3,000m steeplechase 

• Karimah Davis – 200m, 4x100m, 4x400m 

• Areti Filipidou – discus 

• Sophie Galloway – triple jump 

• Jade Gates – hammer throw 

• Jenna Gearing – 800m 

• Tori Herman – 1,500m, 5,000m 

• Alexis Holmes – 400m, 4x400m 

• Darci Khan – 100m hurdles 

• Molly Leppelmeier – shot put, discus, hammer throw 

• Deanna Martin – 800m 

• Dajour Miles – 200m, 4x400m 

• Megan Moss – 400m, 4x400m 

• Masai Russell – 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles, 4x400m 

• Jenna Schwinghamer – 800m 

• Abby Steiner – 100m, 200m, 4x100m, 4x400m 

• Siobhan Szerencsits – pole vault 

• Annika Williams – long jump 

Men 

• Tai Brown – 110m hurdles 

• Logan Coles – hammer throw 

• Keaton Daniel – pole vault 

• Brian Faust – 400m, 4x400m 

• Rodney Heath Jr. – 100m, 4x100m 

• Langston Jackson – 4x100m 

• Lance Lang – 100m, 200m, 4x100m, 4x400m 

• Kennedy Lightner – 200m, 4x400m 

• Rahman Minor – high jump 

• Beck O’Daniel – 400m hurdles 

• Matt Peare – pole vault 

• Jacob Smith – 200m, 4x400m 

• Josh Sobota – shot put, discus 

• Robbie Springfield III – long jump 

• Dwight St. Hillaire – 400m, 4x100m, 4x400m 

• Kenroy Williams – 400m hurdles 

Karimah Davis also qualified as a part of the 48 in the east region in the 100-meter dash, St. Hillaire in the 200m, Lightner in the 400m and Jenna Gearing in the 1,500m but they will not be running those events in Bloomington. 

The Qualifiers at SEC Championships 

UKTF’s 34 NCAA East Preliminary qualifiers are coming off an impressive showing at SEC Championships last week featuring 12 medals: three on the men’s side and nine on the women’s side. 

The most notable performance was the collegiate record and gold medal-winning women’s 4x400m relay (3:21.93) featuring Davis, Dajour Miles, Abby Steiner and Alexis Holmes.  

Steiner and Holmes both ran blazing splits of 48.77 and 49.59 seconds respectively, with Steiner’s split being one of the fastest in collegiate history. 

The second gold medal of the meet came from Daniel in pole vault, earning a season best vault of 18’2.5″/5.55m. It was his second SEC outdoor gold of his career and second-best vault of his career. He is the incoming fourth seed at regionals. 

In addition to the 4x400m gold, Steiner earned three silver medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m. 

In the 100m, Steiner ran 11.02 (-.7) and 22.07 (+.2) in the 200m. Her 200m time was inside the all-time collegiate top-10. She holds the second seed in the east region in both events. 

The 4x100m featuring Steiner, Shadajah Ballard, Masai Russell and Davis earned silver with a time of 42.63, the fourth fastest in program history. 

Steiner will run in the same four events in Bloomington as she did at SEC Championships. 

UK’s men’s 4x400m relay of St. Hillaire, Lang, Lightner and Faust broke three minutes for the first time in school history running 2:59.93, more than two seconds better than the previous school record to earn SEC silver. 

Kentucky’s time made UK the seventh fastest outdoor mile relay school in collegiate history and earned eight points. Both Lightner and Faust ran sub-45-second splits with Faust going 44.49 in the anchor leg. The school record they broke was recorded in the SEC outdoor final last year in college station with three of the legs of the relay the same and Faust slotting into anchor leg. 

Another SEC silver came from Perri Bockrath, earning a silver medal in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase in school record time (9:52.48). It was an eight second personal best and the 14th fastest in the NCAA this season. She’s seeded sixth in the east prelims in the event. 

Jade Gates threw for silver in the hammer throw with a school record mark of 219’11″/67.05m. The previous school record, which also belonged to Gates, was 219’1″/66.77m from the Kentucky Invitational. Gates is the sixth seed in the event in Bloomington. 

Holmes, now a 4x400m collegiate record holder, claimed bronze in the 400m running a personal best 50.74 to gain the World Championships standard, move to No. 2 on UK all-time list only behind Sydney McLaughlin and to score six valuable points for the team. She is the top seed in the 400m at regionals. 

Masai Russell earned bronze in both the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles and will compete in both events in Bloomington as the third and second seeds respectively. She repeated as SEC 400m bronze medalist with a time of 55.44. Her 100H time was 12.78w (+2.1). She also earned a SEC bronze in the 60H indoors earlier this year. 

Matt Peare took bronze in pole vault, going over the bar at 17’4.5″/5.30m. Peare has earned a medal in each of the last four SEC Championships he has competed in, winning the SEC Indoor Championships in 2020 and 2021 and taking silver indoors this year. Peare entered this season coming off a leg injury suffered when going for what would have been a record-setting height after having clinched the victory at the 2021 SEC Indoor Championships. 

Some other NCAA regionals qualifiers that impressed at SEC Championships through scoring points for the Wildcats were Josh Sobota, Molly Leppelmeier and Jenna Schwinghamer. 

Sobota earned two fourth place finishes in shot put (65’0″/19.81m) and discus (188’2″/57.37m), with both marks coming close to his personal bests. He ranks 15th in the NCAA this season in shot put and 25th in discus, fifth and 12th in the east region before the start of regionals. 

Schwinghamer broke the women’s 800m school record with a time of 2:03.18 en route to a fifth-place finish. Jenna Gearing placed seventh to score two points in a PB 2:03.81, which is third fastest in school history. 

Leppelmeier’s fourth place shot put throw was a personal best by over a foot (54’6.75″/16.63m) and moved her up to second all-time for UK in the event outdoors. She also scored two points in the women’s discus with a personal best for seventh place, 169’2″/51.56m that improved her No. 9 mark on the UK all-time list. 

Leppelmeier is second all-time for UK in the hammer throw as well, with her best mark of the season () notching her the 10th seed spot at regionals. 

Track Season Recap 

The Wildcats enter NCAA East Preliminary Championships ranked sixth (women) and 24th (men), with 22 performances ranked in the 2022 NCAA top 50 for the women and 15 for the men. 

The women’s and men’s teams also combine for 18 NCAA top 20 performances for the 2022 outdoor season so far. 

The women’s 4x400m leads the nation with their collegiate record performance at SEC Championships, while the men’s 4x400m team is ranked second in the nation. 

Steiner, appearing in four of those 18 season best performances, gave the Big Blue Nation a taste of #SteinerSpeed, in the lone home meet of the outdoor season. The senior smashed the UK Track & Field facility record in the 200-meter dash running an outdoor personal best of 22.05 seconds, the third fastest time in collegiate history and second fastest in the NCAA this season.  

She also ran the fifth fastest wind legal 100m in collegiate history at the Joe May Invitational at LSU in April, clocking 10.92 for the fastest wind legal time of the 2022 NCAA outdoor season. 

The women’s 4x100m is also top ranked, sitting at No. 2 in the nation this season with a time of 42.46 from the Joe May Invite featuring Steiner, Ballard, Russell and Davis. 

Also ranked third in the nation this season is Russell in the 400m hurdles. She ran a personal best 55.41 at Florida Relays in late March, notching the fourth all-time spot for UK in the process. She also has the No. 7 100m hurdles time in the nation this season from when she earned a personal best 12.71 at the Kentucky Invitational, which was a facility record and third all-time for UK. 

Holmes is ranked fifth in the NCAA this season with her 50.74 personal best from her SEC Championships bronze medal performance, which is also a world championship qualifying standard. 

The highest ranked men’s individual running performance this season is Lang’s wind-assisted 10.06 (2.4) personal best from the Kentucky Invitational that ranks eighth in the NCAA this season and faster than the UKTF school record. His best 200m time of 20.30 is ranked 20th in the NCAA this season. 

Olympian St. Hillaire is the top Wildcat in the men’s 200m and 400m with his season best times of 20.24w (3.0) and 45.41, respectively. His 200m time is ranked 16th in the nation and 400m time is ranked 13th. 

Schwinghamer is the top ranked distance runner for the Cats, currently ranking 13th in the NCAA this season in the 800m from her school record performance (2:03.18) at SEC Championships. 

Bockrath made a jump into the NCAA top 20 with her SEC silver medal and school record in the 3,000m steeplechase, now ranking 16th. 

Tai Brown leads the Cats in the 110m hurdles, also ranking 13th in the NCAA, with a time of 13.49w (2.8). 

The men’s 4x100m is the 17th fastest in the NCAA this season with a time of 39.18 from the Kentucky Invitational, featuring Lang, St. Hillaire, Smith and Lightner. 

The final runner ranked in the NCAA top 20 is Kenroy Williams in the 400m hurdles, ranked 18th with a time of 50.30. 

Field Season Recap 

Leading all field event specialists on the men’s and women’s teams are Daniel, Rahman Minor, Gates and Sobota. 

Daniel is ranked 7th in the NCAA this season in pole vault with his season best vault of 18’2.5″/5.55m from his SEC gold performance, closely followed by teammate and fellow school record-holder Matt Peare at 23rd (17’7″/5.36m) 

Minor is ranked 13th in the high jump with a height of 7’2.25″/2.19m from Florida Relays, which was his best jump in over two years. He has jumped over seven feet in each of UKTF’s five regular season outdoor meets this season and placed in the top two of every one of them. 

Gates is the No. 16 hammer thrower in the NCAA this season with her silver medal throw (220’0″/67.05) from SEC Championships. 

Sobota is ranked high in both the shot put and discus, ranking 15th in the shot put with his outdoor collegiate personal best of 65’2.25″/19.87m from the Joe May Invitational and 25th in discus (191’9″/58.44m). His shot put was second all-time in UKTF history and discus throw was ninth all-time for UK. 

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