CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Illinois men's track and field team wrapped up the 2018 indoor season with five event titles at the Orange and Blue Open on Saturday at the UI Armory. The Illini tallied victories in the pole vault, weight throw, shot put, 3,000m and 800m in the team's final tune up before next weekend's Big Ten Championships. Full results here.

"A meet like this is tricky because we don't have everybody out competing due to resting a lot of people," head coach Mike Turk said following the meet. "We have people that want to put up performances and others that want to polish some things up before next week. It's always iffy when you have just part of a team out here, you miss part of that team dynamic. I thought we did pretty well. I was very pleased with the pole vault, LaRocca and Cooper [Jazo] were outstanding, the women vaulted well, our guys in the weight throw were really good and we had some good performances on the track. We got everything done that we wanted to, we didn't get anybody hurt, and we got some improved performances. I think we're ready to go for next week."

The Illini had their best vault competition to date this season, as redshirt sophomore Jacob LaRocca posted a season-best mark to win the event and sophomore Cooper Jazo cleared five meters for the first time in his career.

Edging Illinois State's Luke Nelson, who cleared 16'8", for the event victory, LaRocca cleared his first four bars of competition. After his first miss of the competition, LaRocca bounced back to clear 16'10.75" (5.15m) on his second attempt to mark the second-highest bar of his career. The third-year Illini made attempts at 17'1.5" (5.22m), but was unsuccessful.

Joining LaRocca in surpassing five meters was Jazo who cleared three bars in route to the third-place finish. After missing on his first attempt of competition, Jazo rolled off three straight successful attempts with the final at 16'5.25" (5.01m) to set a new personal record. The personal record is the third time this season Jazo has set a lifetime best. 

Illinois senior throwers Matsen Dziedzic and Michael Hyc paired up to sweep the throwing event titles for the Orange and Blue, Dziedzic taking the weight throw while Hyc grabbed the shot put title on his final throw.

Now more than a month since Dziedzic lost a weight throw competition, Dziedzic made it four straight victories in the event with another personal-record throw on Saturday. After surpassing 20 meters on his second attempt, Dziedzic muscled an extra half inch improvement on his personal record, marking 68'1" (20.75m) on his third throw of the day that stood up for the remainder of competition. Hyc earned his runner-up finish when he cleared marked 67'5.5" (20.56m) on his fifth throw.

The two Illini seniors reversed order later in the day as Hyc won the shot put with Dziedzic taking runner-up. After fouling on his previous four attempts in the series, Hyc powered a 54'6" (16.61m) mark to win it. Dziedzic also posted his best throw on his final attempt, marking 54'1.75" (16.50m).

The Fighting Illini distance crew added a pair of victories to the Illinois haul, first in the 800m and then in the 3,000m to round out the meet. 

The lone Illini to post a victory on the track was junior Trevor Kuehr in the 800m. Kuehr finished the four laps of the track in 1:55.66 to win the race, marking a season-best in the event.

Redshirt junior Zack Smith added the second victory with a 8:27.73 time in the 3,000m to win the race by nearly five seconds.

The Fighting Illini begin postseason competition next weekend with Big Ten Indoor Championships February 23-24 at the Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio. Competition will be streamed on BTN Plus throughout the meet. NCAA Indoor Championships will be held two weeks later, March 9-10, in College Station, Texas.

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