Feb. 6, 2010
Results
SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Illinois turned in a plethora of personal bests at the Meyo Invitational while competing against some of the top teams in the nation at the Loftus Center this weekend. On Friday night, freshman Bai Kabba stole the show for the Illini, winning the 300m dash in a time of 34.41 for his second career individual event title. Sophomore Andrew Riley continued to near an NCAA provisional mark, as he reset his personal best in the 60m dash (6.74) for the fourth straight meet and placed second in the event.
"I was pleased with weekend overall because our guys continued to improve," interim head coach Mike Turk said. "We need to keep getting better, but it is always positive to have numerous athletes turn in personal bests. Bai (Kabba) had a nice weekend with a victory in the 300m, and Riley has reset his personal best each week in the 60m, which is pretty outstanding for an athlete of that level."
Sophomore Stanley Azie tallied personal bests and placed fourth overall in both the 60m (6.87) and 200m (21.59), while freshman Boyea Lockett placed ninth in the 60m with a time of 6.92. In the 60m hurdles, Riley ran a solid 7.94 in the preliminaries, but false started in the finals. Junior Dan Jones (48.09) and Kabba (48.13) finished eighth and ninth, respectively, in the 400m, as both athletes tallied personal bests in the event.
Freshman Malcolm Taylor placed eighth in the 500m with a 1:03.98, and both seniors, Brian Beaird (1:51.10) and Scott Phelps (1:52.36), added personal bests in the 800m to place 13th and 21st. In the mile, Kyle Engnell (4:09.65) posted a PR to lead the Illini with a 13th-place finish followed by Mike Murray (4:10.42) in 17th and Graham Farnsworth (4:11.00), who also notched a PR, in 19th.
In the longer distance events, sophomore Dan Kremske (8:15.89) smashed his personal best in the 3,000m to finish 13th, and the Mickow brothers came in 20th and 21st in the 5,000m, with Hunter running a 14:40.46 and Colin finishing five seconds later at 14:45.42.
In the field events, junior Oz Lifshitz turned in the top performance, garnering fourth in the triple jump with a mark of 49-1 (14.96m). Freshman Ryan Michel placed ninth in the high jump with a leap of 6-9 (2.06m), while Riley was the top Illini long jumper, finishing 15th with a bound of 22-11 (6.98m). Sophomore Alex Baldwin placed 10th in the pole vault with a personal-best mark of 16-0 ¾ (4.90m) and freshman Josh Hodur was 17th after a mark of 15-7 (4.75m).
Next week, Illinois splits up for a pair of meets, with part of the team competing at the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa, and the other part of the squad heading to Fayetteville, Ark., for the Tyson Invitational.
