Baylor
NCAA Indoor Championships
T&F Headed to Boston for NCAA Indoor Championships
3/7/2024 12:22:00 PM | Track & Field
Seven Bears begin action Friday afternoon
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Other than Nathaniel Ezekiel and Demar Francis, who are making repeat trips, Baylor has a "bunch of newbies" at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships that began Thursday night with the men's and women's weight throws.
A trio of freshmen – women's pole vaulters Alencia Lentz and Molly Haywood and 60-meter hurdler Demario Prince – will be joined by first-timers Alexis Brown in the women's long jump and Laurenz Colbert in the men's 200 meters in the national championships at the TRACK at new balance in Boston.
"Our field event crew has done a great job all year, so I don't expect anything differently up in Boston," said Baylor head coach Michael Ford. "We've got a bunch of newbies going, but they've been competing well all year."
Lentz was Baylor's lone Big 12 champion two weeks ago in Lubbock, winning the pole vault with a meet-record and program record-tying mark of 14 feet, 9 inches. She goes into the meet with the fourth-best collegiate vault in the nation, behind only Washington freshman Hana Molli (15-2 ¾), Rutgers junior Chloe Timberg (14-11) and High Point junior Sydney Horn (14-9 ½).
"I've been in big meets. Nothing like this one," Lentz said. "But at the same time, if you go in with a humble mindset, it's the best option. Everyone there is going to be good, so if you go in with the mindset of, 'I'm going to compete; everyone is going to be just as good, if not better, than I am.' Just going in there with the mindset of, they're good, but I can also be good, if I don't let it get to my head."
Joining Lentz in the field of 16 competitors in the pole vault is Haywood, a fellow freshman that finished third in the Big 12 and is tied for 11th nationally with a mark of 14-5 ¼.
"It's been awesome," Lentz said of having a teammate like Haywood. "It's been so fun to compete with her both in practice and at the meets. We both push each other. I want her to do good, she wants me to do good. It's like we always have that competition of where we want to do well, but we also want to be there for each other when we can."
After not making it to nationals for a couple years, Baylor assistant coach Brandon Richards told Ford last year that "I've got two young ladies that can make it."
"I trust him with everything that he knows what he's doing," Ford said of Richards, who was a pole vaulter at Baylor and the son of double Olympic gold medalist Bob Richards. "He's had great success with Annie (Rhodes) and KC (Lightfoot) and Tuesdi (Tidwell). So, he knows what it takes to get there. Those young ladies have been listening to him, and that's why they're there now."
The third freshman making it to nationals, Prince set the program record with two identical 60-meter hurdles races in the preliminary and final rounds of the Big 12 Championships, at 7.62 seconds. Adjusted to 7.64 in the altitude conversion, Prince's time ranks 11th nationally.
"I just want to go there and execute, do what I've been doing all season," said Prince, who shared the Big 12 Conference Men's Outstanding Freshman award with Oklahoma State distance runner Denis Kipngetich. "I think the meets I've been to this year have been high-level competition. I'm in a very competitive conference. So, just go out there and do the same thing."
With only five hurdles in the 60-meter race, Prince said the key is rhythm.
"A bad rhythm can throw you off, it's a very short race," he said. "Just five hurdles, having that (snaps his fingers) consistent rhythm, that's the key."
A transfer from Florida in her second year at Baylor, Brown was the silver medalist in the long jump in the Big 12 meet and won the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational with a program-record mark of 21-6 ¼. She is tied for fourth nationally, behind only Texas junior Ackelia Smith (22-5 ¾), former Florida teammate Claire Bryant (22-0 ¾) and UTSA freshman Ida Breigan (21-7 ¼).
Colbert qualified for his first NCAA Indoor Championship in the 200 meters with a Big 12 Championship preliminary time of 20.63 that ranks 12th nationally. He also missed the qualifying time in the 60-meter dash by three-hundredths of a second, at 6.62.
A second-year transfer from South Dakota, Francis is back in his second-straight 200-meter national semifinal. The senior lowered his own Jamaican national indoor record at the Big 12 meet with a personal-best mark of 20.42 seconds that ranks tied for eighth nationally.
Already a five-time All-American, Ezekiel finished sixth in last year's indoor 400-meter finals, a race that included two other Bears. Seeded ninth in this year's semifinals with a time of 45.54, the junior from Nigeria was also part of a 4x400 relay that placed fifth last year.
"I think our (national) indoor championship is the hardest one to make," Ford said, "because it's the top 16. And every week, it changes. You go from being No. 1 to dropping down to seventh, and you're like, 'Man, can I make it?' So, it goes back and forth. But I think we've been in meets where they've seen the competition for basically five meets. And I think the Big 12 was almost like a mini-national meet.
"The butterflies will be there, just because it's a new place, a new venue for us. It's the first time being in Boston at the new balance TRACK. But we still have to execute the same way as you have been doing at all these other meets."
BOSTON – Baylor track and field is bound for Boston, Mass., to close out the regular season at the 2024 NCAA DI Indoor Track and Field National Championships. The meet is scheduled to begin on Thursday with the men's and women's weight throw competition, and the first Bear is set to compete on Friday at 3:30 p.m. CT.
Coverage of the entire meet will be streamed on ESPN+, with live results provided by Flash Results. Tickets for the event have already sold out.
BEARS TO BOSTON
Earning the most qualifications in the Ford era and tying the third-most in the last 10 years, Alexis Brown (long jump), Laurenz Colbert (200 meters), Nathaniel Ezekiel (400 meters), Demar Francis (200 meters), Molly Haywood (pole vault), Alencia Lentz (pole vault) and Demario Prince (60-meter hurdles) all qualified to compete at the indoor national championship.
The Big 12 women's long jump silver medalist, Brown is ranked as the No. 4 jumper in the nation behind her personal-best and program-record mark of 21-6 ¼. She is still the only Bear to jump over 21 feet indoors and scored a total of 13 points for the Bears across the long jump and 60-meter dash.
Colbert qualifies for his first indoor championship meet in the 200 meters, putting up a season-best 20.87 that was calculated to 20.63 with the altitude in Lubbock that ranks him at 12th in the nation. The junior narrowly missed qualifying in the 60 meters by three-hundredths of a second.
Ezekiel is making his third-straight trek to indoor nationals for the second-straight year in the 400 meters. The junior Nigerian is already a five-time All-American and took sixth place in the quarter mile final that featured three Bears in the 2023 NCAA meet before finishing fifth as part of the 4x400-meter relay. He enters the 2024 edition of the indoor championships as the ninth seed with a personal-best mark of 45.54 seconds.
In his second year in Waco after transferring from South Dakota, Francis is back in his second-straight 200-meter national semifinal. The senior lowered his own Jamaican national indoor record at the Big 12 Championship with a new personal-best mark of 20.42 seconds that put him ninth in the NCAA this season.
Haywood, one of three freshmen lacing up for the Bears at nationals, makes it in with the 11th-ranked height in the country of 14-5 ¼. Clearing that bar at the Corky Classic, Haywood stands as the fourth-best indoor vaulter in program history after one season.
Baylor's lone Big 12 event champion from last weekend's championship meet, Lentz is the second-highest ranked freshman in the country in the women's pole vault at No. 4. Her 14-9 not only won the conference title but also set the meet record and tied the program record set in College Station during the 2020 season by Tuesdi Tidwell. She joined Tidwell and Annie Rhodes as the third Bear to win the indoor conference title.
Prince, the third and final freshman headed to Boston, qualifies to the meet in the 60-meter hurdles as the only freshman in the field of 16. The Jamaican set the program record with two identical races in the preliminary and final conference championship rounds, at 7.62 seconds and is ranked 11th in the country after the altitude conversion that pushed his mark to 7.64.
LAST TIME OUT
The Bears competed at the Big 12 Indoor Championships in Lubbock on Feb. 23-24. The women finished 5th and the men finished 10th in the team standings. Freshman Alencia Lentz was the lone Big 12 Champion from BU, winning the pole vault competition with a program record-tying and meet record-setting mark of 14-9. In all, 19 entries earned All-Big 12 honors across the meet, with one champion, one runner-up and two bronze medals.
RECORD BREAKERS
Gary Moore Jr. (weight throw), Alexis Brown (long jump), Alencia Lentz (pole vault) and Demario Prince (60m hurdles) set program records during the 2024 indoor season. Moore Jr., Prince and Lentz hit new top marks at the Big 12 Championships, with Moore Jr.'s 68-9.75 attempt in the weight throw, Prince's 7.62-second marks in the preliminary and final rounds and Lentz's 14-9 that tied Tuesdi Tidwell's record from 2020. In Clemson's Tiger Paw Invitational, Brown improved her PB and put another new long jump record in the books, the second of the year, going 21-6.25. Junior Nathaniel Ezekiel also broke the collegiate 600-yard record in 1:04.44 at the Corky Classic, the first Bear in just under three years (KC Lightfoot, 2021, pole vault) to sit atop the national list.
CROWN THE PRINCE
Demario Prince was named Big 12 Outstanding Freshman of the Year for the 2024 indoor season last week. Posting five marks in the program's top 10, Prince is the lone freshman in the men's and women's 60-meter hurdle fields. He secured the 11th-best time in the nation with his dual 7.62-second races, adjusted to 7.64 due to altitude, at the Big 12 Championships. He is the eighth Bear to win the honor and shares the 2024 award with Oklahoma State's Denis Kipngetich.
TOP 2(00), NOT 2
The Baylor men's 200-meter group of Demar Francis, Laurenz Colbert, Kamden Jackson and De'montray Callis are ranked first among 200-meter schools across the nation. With an average time of 20.75 seconds, the quartet sits first and edges out Florida and Texas Tech, who find second and third in the list with 20.77 averages. Event Squad rankings from USTFCCCA place a rank order to a program's "squad" of athletes in a particular event, using the cumulative season-best qualifying marks from a team's top-four ranked athletes on the national list.
To stay up to date throughout the year on all things Baylor track and field, follow the team on Facebook, X and Instagram: @BaylorTrack.
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