Following last weekend’s impressive results at the Texas Relays, the Mississippi State track and field team will stay in the state for their next competition, traveling to Oxford to compete in the Mississippi Invitational. Men’s track and field coach Steve Dudley said his team is looking forward to facing its in-state rivals.
“We are excited about staying in the state,” Steve Dudley said. “And with Ole Miss being a rival team, it brings a lot more excitement to the table. We really want to use this meet as a chance to get our individuals regional qualifying marks who have not received them already.”
Members of both track and field teams have posted several NCAA regional qualifying marks and have also broken many records this season.
At the Bulldog Invitational on March 29, the 4×100-meter relay squad (sophomore Kendall May, junior John Bailey, senior Jamil Hubbard and freshman O’Neal Wilder) earned their second qualifying marks of the season with their season-best time of 39.62 seconds to finish in first place.
The 4×400 meter relay (senior Chris Woods, Hubbard, senior Golden Coachman and junior John Bailey) qualified regionally for the second time this season with their first place-time of 3:07.70.
In the 100-meter dash, May earned his second regional qualifying of the season with a first-place time of 10.46.
Senior Kyle Roberts competed in the 400-meter hurdles, earning his first regional qualifying mark of the season in 52.28 seconds.
Wilder earned his second standard of the day in the 200-meter, ending out the race in 21.08 seconds to finish second.
Sophomore Wendy Copeland, junior Priscilla Gaines and junior Janelle Finley conquered the long jump, taking the top three spots in the competition.
Copeland jumped a personal-best 20.01 to take home first place, while Gaines leaped a personal-best 19-08 and Finley finished with a jump of 18-11 to take second and third.
In women’s relay action, the Lady Bulldog 4×100-meter relay team (junior Gabrielle Dillon, Copeland, sophomore Bridgett Rose and Gaines) were eight-tenths of a second shy from qualifying for NCAAs with their time of 45.78, despite taking first place in the event.
On the first day of competition at the Texas Relays, senior Pad Judd used a personal-best time of nine minutes, 8.22 seconds to split away from the competition in the B-section of the 3,000-meter steeplechase to claim the first-place spot in the event on the opening day of the 81st Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays.
In the last event of the opening day, the 5,000-meter run, senior Ashenafi Arega finished in a personal-best 14:35.49 to take seventh place.
Women’s head coach Al Schmidt said the focus will be different with this meet.
“Because this meet is not scored, we will be more worried with individual events,” Al Schmidt said. “We will perform on one race and let some of those who are banged up rest because they must be better for the SEC. We will be looking for NCAA regional qualifying marks.