Three Illini Medal, Five Advance on Day 1 of Big Ten Championships

Friday, February 23

Geneva, Ohio

ALL DAY

University of Illinois

Big Ten Championships

Three Illini Medal, Five Advance on Day 1 of Big Ten Championships

February 23, 2018 | Men's Track & Field

Davis, LaRocca and DMR earn medals

GENEVA, OH – Three Illinois men's track and field athletes medaled on day one of Big Ten Championships, scoring a combined 20 team points, while five other Illini advanced to track finals. The Fighting Illini sit in second place behind Indiana (26) heading into Saturday. Full results can be found here.

"I think we've done what we've challenged them to be, which was competitive," said head coach Mike Turk. "I think the performances show that. I think we competed really well, which is what I was most pleased with. We're a little thin on qualifiers on the track, but we've got really good ones. I feel pretty good about where we're at. It's atypical to be as high in the standings after day one, so this is a very good day-one performance for us."

Illinois received points from redshirt freshman Jon Davis, runner-up in the 3,000 meters, redshirt sophomore Jacob LaRocca, third in the pole vault, and capped off by another third place finish in the distance medley relay.

Four athletes combined to give Illini five spots in Saturday finals, as the Orange and Blue sent at least one to finals in each sprint event: Cole Henderson (60m), Devin Quinn (60m ,200m), Joe Haight (400m) and David Kendziera (60m hurdles).

Illinois' top point-scorer of day one, Davis tallied eight points with a silver medal in the seeded section of the 3,000 meters. Davis beat out Ben Veatch (Indiana), Joe Hardy (Wisconsin) and Kyle Mau (Indiana) for the runner-up finish, while finishing behind Wisconsin's Oliver Hoare who won the race with a time of 8:11.07. The second place finish gives Davis his first career Big Ten medal. Senior Alex Gold fell just shy of scoring, clocking the ninth-best time of the event by crossing the finish line with a season-best time of 8:17.87.

"Davis ran great in the 3,000 [meters]," said Turk. "I don't want to say it was to be expected, but he's one of our big guns so certainly pleased with his race."

Adding six points in the pole vault, redshirt sophomore Jacob LaRocca set a new personal record by clearing 17'1.75" (5.23m) on his third attempt at the height to earn his first career Big Ten medal. Prior to the personal record, LaRocca cleared the first four bars without a miss. The height is just one inch away from entering Illinois' all-time indoor list.

"The pole vault was a really great start for us," Turk said. "Two weeks ago we didn't have anyone in the top-10 in the conference. Today, we got a guy that pulled out a third place, and another guy that's ready to score down the road."

The Illini distance squad finished off the scoring with six more points to the day-one haul in the final track event of the day with a bronze medal in the distance medley relay, timing 9:46.12. Senior Garrett Lee led off with the 1200m portion of the race, followed by redshirt freshman Aaron Harris in the 400m, senior Tony Zea in the 800m and anchored by junior Denis O'Callaghan's final 1600m.

"Garrett [Lee[ and Denis [O'Callaghan] were both pretty down after the open mile prelims, especially Denis," explained Turk. "Those guys got it together, and I thought they ran an outstanding race. They ran smart, they ran with their heart and put out a performance to get up on the podium. Aaron Harris and Tony Zea ran lifetime bests in that relay too."

Redshirt sophomore Joe Haight was the first Illini to punch his ticket to finals, doing so with a personal-best time to win his heat of the 400m. Haight led the opening heat of prelims with a time of 47.15 that improves upon his time at Kentucky earlier this season. A walk-on last spring, Haight will be competing in his first career Big Ten final on Saturday.

"It's pretty amazing for him to be running the 400m, which he really didn't do in high school, Joe is one of the most valuable kids in the program," said coach Turk. "He's earned some scholarship from his past performances, but he's a guy we can count on to run a high-quality relay leg in the 4x100m and is a great 200m runner, can run on our 4x400m [relay,] and now he's an individual finalist in the open 400m. Those are the kind of things that I want our program to stand for."

Next, Illinois put two through to the 60m dash final with senior Cole Henderson and junior Devin Quinn each advancing. Henderson earned an automatic qualifying spot to the final by winning heat four with an impressive 0.09-second personal record, clocking 6.70 to move into fifth place on Illinois' all-time list. Quinn finished hot on the heels of Henderson, leaning through the line at 6.71. Henderson will be making his first indoor sprint finals appearance after taking eighth in the 100m at last year outdoor meet, while Quinn will look to improve off his fifth-place finish last season.

"Cole's a really talented guy," Turk said following the senior's personal record. "He won a whole bunch of state titles in high school. He came here and I think the expectations are really hard for kids some times to live up to as freshmen and sophomores. I think it's a blessing to see a kid like that who had a big breakthrough last spring at the outdoor meet in the 100m. He's been an All-American for us in the relay, but then he got in there and scored in the 100m. All season, we've seen him running good races, and we knew he was capable of doing something special."

Making it three Illini in the top-12 of the short sprints, senior Mo Maat fell just shy of qualifying, clocking a season best 7.81 time. Maat also took 10^th in the long jump competition, leaping 23'4.75" (7.13m).

Quinn returned later in the afternoon to qualify for his second final of the day, setting a season-best time of 21.07 that ranked fifth in prelims. It's the second straight year that Quinn has qualified for both the 60m and 200m finals.

In between Quinn's two qualifying performances, redshirt senior David Kendziera set the third-fastest qualifying time in the 60m hurdles. Nearly winning his heat, Kendziera time of 7.814 placed him just behind William Sessions' (Indiana) time of 7.811. The 2017 runner-up in the event, Kendziera will look to win his first Big Ten title in the event on Saturday.

The Fighting Illini continue competition at Big Ten Championships tomorrow, February 24, with field and track finals. Day two begins at 9 a.m. central time with the conclusion of the heptathlon. BTN Plus and FloTrack will stream day two of the meet live with subscription to either platform.

For complete coverage of Fighting Illini Track and Field, visit FightingIllini.com, follow the Illini on Twitter (@IlliniMTrack and @IlliniWTrack) and Instagram (@IlliniMTrack and @IlliniWTrack) and like Fighting Illini Men's Track and Field and Fighting Illini Women's Track on Facebook.

3,000m

2. Jon Davis, 8:12.28 – 8 points

9. Alex Gold, 8:17.87

18. Zach Dale, 8:23.47

Pole Vault

3. Jacob LaRocca, 17'1.75" (5.23m) – 6 points

T-13. Cooper Jazo, 15'8.25" (4.78m)

DMR

3. Lee (1200m), Harris (400m), Zea (800m) and O'Callaghan (1600m), 9:46.12 – 6 points

Mile

16. Garrett Lee, 4:16.86