Baylor
Big 12 Outdoor Championships
Track: Men Finish 4th, Women 5th at Big 12 Championships
5/19/2001 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
May 19, 2001
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - For the third time in the meet's five-year history, a Baylor athlete finished first in the men's 400 meters here Saturday during the final day of the 2001 Big 12 Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Surprising, though, was which Baylor athlete took the crown.
Sophomore Zsolt Szeglet claimed his first-career individual conference title with a career-best time of 45.43 seconds to win the 400. His time, which is just three hundredths of a second shy of the NCAA automatic qualification threshold, is currently tied for sixth nationally. Baylor's Brandon Couts, the 1998 and 1999 champion in the 400, finished second at 46.44, followed by freshman Joel Martin at 46.51.
That 1-2-3 finish gave Baylor 24 points and propelled the Bears' 12th-ranked men's team to a fourth-place finish with 88 total points. Zseglet finished as the seventh-highest individual point scorer on the men's side, accounting for 16.5 points.
Meanwhile, the women's team rebounded from an 11th-place showing at the Big 12 indoors to place fifth with 80 total team points. Barbara Petrahn was the fourth-highest point scorer on the women's side with 20 points.
Petrahn turned in perhaps the most impressive day for Baylor, finishing first in the 400 meters, third in the 200 meters and anchoring both the 4x100 team and the 4x400 team to second-place finishes. In the 400, Petrahn ran the second-fastest time in the NCAA this season with an automatic qualifying mark of 51.85 seconds. That time also ties Jennifer Jordan's 1998 clocking as the second-fastest in school history behind only Yulanda Nelson's 51.42 in 1999.
"We didn't have any letdowns," Baylor head coach Clyde Hart said. "For our women to come from 11th at the indoor meet was great. We got all we could get out of them. You look at Barbara Petrahn, she ran four races today and all of them were quality races. If she's fresh, she probably wins the 200, but she gave us the points we had to have."
In her fourth race in less than three hours and her sixth race of the weekend, Petrahn turned in a crowd-pleasing 51.5-second anchor split in the 4x400-meter relay that almost allowed the Bears to upset Texas, currently ranked No. 2 in the nation. Upon taking the baton from third-leg Keisa Brown, Petrahn trailed UT anchor Nakiya Johnson by 20 meters, by the final turn, Petrahn was right on Johnson's shoulder. In the end, though, Petrahn's fatigue caught up with her and UT won at 3:34.04 to Baylor's 3:34.40.
"That was my fourth race of the day," a winded Petrahn said after the race. "I'm dead. I just ran, I got on her shoulder and just followed her."
Petrahn came around Williams as the pair exited the final turn and held the lead for nearly 40 meters, but Williams pulled away in the final 15.
"She could have settled for second," Hart said of Petrahn. "But she came back with a 51.5 - I mean, that's unbelievable."
Equally unbelievable was Baylor's performance in the intermediate hurdles. On the women's side, Chava Demart established a school-record time for the fourth consecutive race at 57.05. That time was second only to Angel Patterson of Texas, who ran the nation's fastest time of the year at 56.09. Demart's NCAA automatic mark ranks seventh nationally and is more than two seconds faster than the school record entering the season.
In the men's race, national leader Bayano Kamani finished first at 49.22, lowering his season-best mark. Michael Smith finished second with an automatic mark of 49.83, moving into a third-place tie nationally. For Kamani, it was his third-consecutive Big 12 title in the intermediate hurdles.
Floyd Thompson, currently ranked third nationally in the 800 meters, gave the Baylor men a fourth individual title as he eased to a 1:48.50 clocking. Damian Davis finished eighth at 1:51.15. The men's 4x400-meter relay team brought home its fourth Big 12 title in five years, Couts, Kamani, Smith and Thompson posted an automatic time of 3:02.92. Baylor has now run automatic times in the 4x400 with four different teams this year.
Ssereta Lafayette, Demart, Brown and Petrahn combined for the third-fastest 4x100-meter relay time in school history at 44.17 seconds to place second. The Bears were barely clipped by Texas (44.13) as Petrahn and Aliyah Williams ran neck and neck throughout the final leg. Baylor's mark meets NCAA automatic qualification standards and is currently ranked ninth in the nation.
Lanie Millar continued her fine season in the 800 meters, running 2:08.29 to finish second. Lafayette ran 11.59 seconds in the finals of the 100 meters for third place.
Baylor also had strong outings in both 200-meter races. Petrahn (23.22) and Lafayette (23.25) finished third and fourth, respectively, on the women's side. In the men's race, Couts (20.87) and Szeglet (20.96) also finished third and fourth, respectively.
Baylor's men's 4x100 team finished third, T.J. Henderson, Randy Davis, Martin Dossett and Szeglet combined for a 40.43-second clocking in the event. Texas A&M (39.41) and Oklahoma (40.17) finished first and second, respectively.
In the pole vault, senior Jim Autenreith cleared a career-best outdoor height of 5.40 meters (17-8 ?) for second place. The competition came down to Autenreith and John Nance of Texas A&M, Nance cleared on his third attempt at 5.50 meters (18-0 ?) while Autenreith missed on all three attempts. Autenreith's clearance, an NCAA provisional mark, is tied for 12th nationally and should get him into the national meet.
Stephanie Bennett, running her first-career 3,000-meter steeplechase, posted a school-record mark of 10:58.84. Kim Cook (11:11.37) had previous held the record in women's steeplechase, which is in its first year as an NCAA event. Kara Newton finished eighth in the 5,000 meters at 17:11.80.
Baylor will now make plans for the 2001 NCAA Championships, the meet will be held May 30 through June 2 on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene.
