March 23, 2002

Final Stats

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois men's track and field team opened up the 2002 outdoor season with a fifth-place finish at the Southern Illinois Spring Classic hosted in Carbondale, Ill.

The Southern Illinois Spring Classic was an eight-team meet featuring Illinois, Eastern Illinois, Indiana State, Kansas, Missouri, Missouri-Kansas City, Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois. The Kansas Jayhawks won the meet with 119 points, while the Illini tallied 74 points to finish fifth.

Bernard Grady opened up his outdoor season by picking up where he left off during the indoor campaign. The junior from San Diego, Calif., won the shot put with a throw of 54'03.25 to best the rest of the field by nearly two feet.

Grady was joined atop the awards stand by teammate Kendall McCroy. McCroy, a Peru, Ind., native really improved during the course of the indoor season, and used that to win the 200m with a time of 21.78 seconds.

In addition to the event wins by Grady and McCroy, Illinois also had a good scoring presence in the sprint, distance and field events.

In the distance events, Brent Pfeiffer earned a fourth-place finish in the 1,500m run with a time of 3:59.66 and Mike Lucchesi, Justin Mitchell and Adam Palumbo took fourth, fifth and seventh place respectively in the 5,000m.

John Kronforst wrapped up the distance scoring for Illinois by finishing third in the 3,000m steeplechase. The junior from Prospect Heights, Ill., finished with a time of 9:31.55.

In the field events, Illinois got scoring performances from both Marty Keifer in the pole vault and Kurt Glesne in the discus.

Keifer finished third in the vault with a height of 15'06.50", while the freshman Glesne also took third with a throw of 156'08.00" in the discus.

###Illinois###