Witherspoon Leads Bears on Qualifying Day

Saturday, May 12

Lincoln, Neb.

All Day

Baylor

Big 12 Outdoor Championships

Witherspoon Leads Bears on Qualifying Day

5/12/2007 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field

May 12, 2007

Results

LINCOLN, Neb. -

Photo Gallery

Reggie Witherspoon recorded the top times in the men's 200 meters and 400 meters and Baylor qualified for 17 spots in Saturday's event finals on the second day of competition at the 2007 Big 12 Outdoor Championships.

Kansas leads the men's overall competition with 37 points, while Nebraska leads on the women's side with 74 team points heading into the final day. Baylor has yet to score in either the men's or women's team standings.

"We had another great day at the track today," said head coach Todd Harbour. "We had a lot of people qualify for the event finals tomorrow; we had a couple of close misses, but that is just how it goes with track and field. We really set ourselves up to get a lot of points tomorrow."

Witherspoon (Marietta, Ga.) set a season-best, the third-fastest time in the country, in the men's 400 meters with a blistering 45.56 in his first open quartermile of the season. The senior led the Bears as LeJerald Betters (Waco, Texas) and Quentin Iglehart-Summers (San Antonio, Texas) each won their preliminary heats, and J.T. Scheuerman (Littleton, Colo.) also qualified for the event finals.

"I just feel really blessed," said Witherspoon. "We knew that we could come out here and run well, we just had to get on the track and execute. The coaches prepared us in practice, and we proved it today. We have a lot of faith in our coaches and they put us in the position to perform well today."

Betters ran a personal best of 45.62 to place second in the preliminaries behind Witherspoon. This marks the second straight meet that Betters has run sub-46 seconds in the 400 meters. Iglehart-Summers cruised to a time of 46.53 to finish fourth overall, and Scheuerman finished second to Betters in his heat to finish seventh in the preliminaries at 46.64.

R.J. Anderson (Big Pine Key, Fla.) finished 11^th in 47.07, and Mark Teter (San Antonio, Texas) earned his first regional qualifying time this season in 47.12. The Bears have now qualified seven different athletes in the 400 meters. David Gettis (Los Angeles, Calif.), battling back from a hamstring injury, took 27^th in 48.37.

Baylor also qualified three runners in the men's 200 meters, led by Witherspoon's personal-best time of 20.32, the second-fastest time in the nation. Courtney Thomas (Kilgore, Texas) finished second overall with a personal-best of 20.52. Trey Harts (Lake Charles, La.) also qualified for the event finals with a personal-best time of 20.74 to finish eighth overall in the preliminaries.

The Lady Bears took the top three positions in the women's 800 meter preliminaries leading into tomorrow's event finals. Nichole Jones (Spring, Texas) led the way for Baylor, posting the fastest preliminary time of 2:08.52. Danielle Bradley (West Palm Beach, Fla.) and Lauren Hagans (Little Rock, Ark.) placed second and third with times of 2:08.61 and 2:08.69, respectively. Kathryn Benvegnu took 15^th with a time of 2:14.18.

Carla Grace (San Antonio, Texas) qualified for the event finals in both the 100 meters and the 200 meters. She took seventh in the preliminaries of the 100 meters tying her season-best of 11.54 seconds. In the 200 meters, Grace set a new personal record, finishing in 23.19 to take fifth. Jessica Gregory (Richmond, Texas) placed 15^th in the 100 meters with a time of 11.94, and took 21^st in the 200 meters in a season-best 24.60.

Thomas qualified for the 100 meter finals with a time of 10.40 to place seventh in the preliminaries. Harts took 14^th in 10.60.

"It was really good to see all three of our guys PR (personal record) in the 200 meters," said assistant coach Michael Ford. "We came into the race hoping to get all three runners in the finals. Reggie's (Witherspoon) time really didn't surprise me too much. He is such a good curve runner, and then he has great strength to finish from all his 400 meter work. I'm really happy for Carla (Grace); after seeing her in practice this week, I knew that she was ready to run fast. I'm happy that she has a chance to score a lot of points for us.

Kevin Mutai (Round Rock, Texas) made up ground down the last homestretch to finish in seventh place in the men's 800 meters. His time of 1:50.34 was good enough to qualify for the event finals on Sunday. John Robertson placed 22^nd with a time of 1:55.64.

Lauren Tillman (Lawrenceville, Ga.) ran a season-best 59.31 to place fifth in the women's 400-meter hurdles and qualify for the event finals. Katrina Taylor (Baton Rouge, La.) ran 1:00.58 to finish in 10^th place.

Two Baylor middle-distance runners qualified in the 1,500 meters as Ruth Waller (Manchester, England) placed sixth in 2:29.03 and Mitch Sanders (Katy, Texas) took sixth in 3:48.27. Bo Price (Atlanta, Texas) placed 13^th with a time of 3:52.42, while John Wenhold (Corpus Christi, Texas) finished 27^th in 4:02.86.

Rena Napolean (Colorado Springs, Colo.) finished 11^th in the women's 400 meters with a time of 56.63.

DeAna Carson (Long Beach, Calif.) placed 17^th in the women's long jump with a best leap of 5.58m (18-03.75). Kaleigh Teel (Friendswood, Texas) finished 11^th in the women's pole vault with a clearance of 3.65m (11-11.75). Ashley Korol (Wheaton, Ill.) placed 13^th with a vault of 3.50m (11-05.75), while Katie Stoever (Tulsa, Okla.) missed all three attempts at the opening height.

Junior Kim Brown (Waco, Texas) moved up one spot, finishing 12^th in the women's heptathlon with a final score of 3,769. She led off the day with a leap of 5.32m (17-05.50) in the long jump. She then threw 25.95m (85-02) in the javelin and finished the day with a time of 2:37.77 in the 800 meters.

Baylor returns to action on Sunday in the final day of the 2007 Big 12 Outdoor Championships. Field events begin at 12 noon, while the first running final of the day starts at 1:15 p.m.

2007 Big 12 Outdoor Championships

Friday:

Women's Discus

1. Dace Ruskule, NU - 55.74m

15. Brittany Devereaux, BU - 43.94m

Men's 10,000 Meters

1. Kevin Chelimo, TT - 30:34.43

17. Jacob Jones, BU - 31:54.95

Saturday:

Women's Events

100 Meters - Prelims.

1. Simone Facey, TAM - 11.24