Baylor Off To Strong Start At Big 12 Meet
8/14/2000 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
Feb. 25, 2000
AMES, Iowa - Brandon Couts qualified for the 400 meter and 200 meter finals while setting season best marks in both events today during the opening day of competition at the Big XII Indoor Championships in Ames, Iowa.
Couts ran a 45.90 in the 400 meters and a 20.97 in the 200 meters. Both times are season bests for the junior who entered the meet with the nation's top collegiate 400 meter time. Couts will be joined in the quartermile by teammates Zsolt Szeglet (46.78) and Bayano Kamani (46.89). Szeglet (21.25) will also compete in the 200 meter finals.
Sophomore Tre Gardner will enter tomorrow's 60 meter dash with the meet's top time, as will junior-transfer Floyd Thompson in the 600 yards and Ferenc Bekesi in the mile. Gardner ran a 6.70 in the 60 meter preliminaires and a 6.74 in the finals. Thompson clocked a 1:09.16 in the 600 yards, while Damain Davis ran a 1:09.87 to get into the finals. Bekesi ran a 4:09.73 in the mile. Also making the cut for Saturday's finals is Jonathan Pike in the 800 meters (1:52.03).
"Our men are doing really well. We knew we had to come into today's competition and get our athletes to qualify in aresa where we are the strongest. Well, we did that. We have people in positions that give us a good chance to do well in the finals," head coach Clyde Hart said.
On the women's side, Keisa Brown qualified for the finals in the 400 meters with a preliminary time of 54.78. Barbara Petrahn will run in the 600 yards final after posting a preliminary time of 1:22.63. Also running in that race will be former walk-on Lanie Millar who finished with a time of 1:23.29.
"We're please with how well our women performed in the 600 yards. We felt Barbara had a good chance of making the finals, but Lanie also performed very well and gave us an added boost by making the cut," Hart said.
In final events run today, three-sport all-American Karin Ernstorm finished third in the 5000 meters with a time of 16:50.04. Kara Newton was eighth with a 17:17.20. Kerry O'Bric finished sixth in the heptathlon with 3,865 points, and five personal best marks. The men's distance medley relay picked up two points for the Bears, finishing seventh with a time of 9:54.80.
After one-day of competition, Nebraska leads the women's race with 61 points. Baylor is eighth with 14. For the men, Missouri leads with 29 points. The Bears are 12th with two.
Tomorrow's action begins at 9 a.m. with the multi-events and ends at 4:55 p.m. with the 4x400 meter relay.
