April 4, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas - Just two weeks into the season and it is apparent that Illinois has yet another strong 4x800-meter relay team. The group of Aaron King, Tre` Smith, Jimmy Kinn and Tim Hobbs ran a season-best time of 7:28.29 to finished third overall at the 76th annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, to pace Illinois' efforts thus far at the meet.

After finishing second a week ago at the Florida Relays, the 4x800-meter relay team improved by nearly a second this weekend enroute to finishing third against the 18-team field. Sophomore Aaron King has been the highlight of the meet thus far as he ran an outstanding split to have the Illini in contention early on.

"Aaron really set the tone for our relay," assistant coach Erin Tucker said. "When you have someone open up as strongly as Aaron did, you pull along the rest of your team and that's what happened. This is an outstanding early-season time for this group and we are really encouraged by Aaron King's performance."

Another solid outing was turned in by senior triple jumper Charles Burton. After ensuring his berth to the NCAA Regional Championships last weekend at the Florida Relays with a career-best jump of 52'03.25", Burton used another solid performance of 50'08.00" to finish sixth overall against the field of 18 jumpers. Burton was joined by freshman Jamaal Folks who jumped 48'01.75".

Illinois also got solid improvements from its young hurdle corps as freshman Andre English competed in the 110 meter high hurdles, while freshmen Adrian Walker and Anthony Young took part in the 400 meter intermediate hurdles.

English, a native of Dayton, Ohio, finished with a time of 14.52 seconds, a .07 second improvement from a week ago, while Walker ran a time of 53.86 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles, a drastic improvement from the 54.33 he ran last weekend at the Florida Relays.

"These guys are improving at a steady pace right now despite the fact that they are training so hard during the week," Tucker said. "With the addition of the NCAA Regional meet, the season is much longer than it was before and we lose some of preparation time. However these guys continue to work hard and the results are showing. If they continue this progression, they will be where they want to be come the Big Ten Championships."

The Illinois men's track and field team will continue competition at the Texas Relays on Saturday, while the lone Illinois women's competitor, Nicole Whitman, will also be in action. Whitman will compete in the triple jump, which is scheduled to get underway on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.