Feb. 8, 2003

Results

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Illinois men's track and field team got an impressive meet victory and have a number of outstanding individual performances to prove it as they defeated Big 12 foes Iowa State and Kansas as well as in-state rival Southern Illinois at the Illini Classic held Saturday at the U of I Armory Track.

Illinois won the meet with 123 points, while Southern Illinois finished second with 119 points, Kansas third with 118 points and Iowa State fourth with 61 points.

Peter Stasiulis turned in the first impressive performance of the day as he shattered his personal best in the mile by better than four seconds enroute to winning with a time of 4:12.56. With his time, Stasiulis tied Aaron Wahls for the fastest mile run by an Illini this season.

"I knew that I couldn't run anyone's race but my own," Stasiulis said. "I knew the splits that I wanted to run before the race and I just stuck with it. Once I hit that last 200 meters, I took the lead and I wasn't going to let anyone catch me. It's a great feeling right now and it's something that I can use to prepare me for the Big Ten Championships."

Another outstanding distance performance was turned in by freshman Jason Bill in the 3,000 meters. After opening his indoor campaign with an 8:34.10, Bill responded by running an 8:18.90 to finish second in the event. In doing so, Bill recorded the eighth-fastest 3,000-meter time in Illinois history and the third fastest 3,000-meter time among Big Ten performers this season.

"It was a great race by Jason," head coach Gary Wieneke said. "He left everything he had on the track today. The guy from Kansas took off and Jason nearly caught him. He was never content with second place the whole race and he nearly made up a huge margin. It was a fun race to watch."

Illinois runners finished fourth and fifth in the 600 meters thanks to personal-best times of 1:21.14 by Clint Cherco and 1:21.27 by Aaron King. Freshman Jimmy Kinn also recorded a season best in the 800 meters, running a time of 1:54.37 to finish third.

Illinois enjoyed a successful day in the field events as well, thanks to a victory in the shot put by Bernard Grady and second-place finishes by Marty Keifer in the pole vault and Charles Kurlinkus in the high jump.

After missing last weekend's meet with an illness, Grady picked up where he left off with a throw of 54'10.00" to easily win the shot put, despite not being able to practicing much during the week.

The Big Ten's second-ranked pole vaulter, Marty Keifer continues to perform well jumping 16'08.75" to finish second to Southern Illinois' Ray Scotten. Scotten cleared the same height as Keifer, but earned the win based on misses.

Kurlinkus also continues to improve as a freshman. The Roscoe, Ill., product easily cleared 6'08.00" in the high jump to finish second to Iowa State's Gil Ridenour. Kurlinkus nearly cleared his final attempted at 6'09.75", but clipped the bar with his heel on his way over.

# Illinois #