Texas Tech University Athletics
Texas Tech Eyes NCAA Championship Berths In Austin
May 27, 2015 | Track and Field
JW Smith (left) & Darien Tennon (right) take top-20 regional rankings in the 400 meter hurdles into this weekend's NCAA West Preliminary Round.
LUBBOCK, Texas -- This weekend, May 28-30, 29 members of the Texas Tech No. 11 women's and No. 12 men's track & field teams will compete at the NCAA West Preliminaries, in Austin, Texas, with a chance to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Each Red Raider that competes will have a shot at qualifying for the NCAA Championships. Out of the 48 individuals and 24 relays that qualified for each event, the top 12 performances in each event this weekend will earn a ticket to Eugene, Ore., for the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
"This meet is an incredible opportunity for us," Texas Tech head coach Wes Kittley said. "There are 48 athletes and 24 relays in each event, and you just have to be No. 12 to move on. I've seen it all at this meet, between high-ranking athletes not qualifying, and athletes who weren't supposed to make it sneak into the 12th spot. We just have to keep doing the things that got us here. We have to take care of business ourselves, and the rest will fall into place. I'm anticipating some great performances this weekend."
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday,, field events will begin at noon each day. Running events begin at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, 5 p.m. on Friday and 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Texas Tech is coming off an impressive showing at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, where the men placed second as a team, and the women took third.
The Red Raiders & Lady Raiders combined for six individual conference titles and 42 All-Big 12 honors during the three days in Ames.
Leading the way for Tech was Hannah Carson, who picked up titles in the javelin and discus, on her way to being named the Big 12 Female Performer of the Year.
Both live results and a live webcast of the meet will be available at texassports.com.
Out of the Blocks
- With one qualification, Texas Tech track & field will send at least one athlete to the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the 16th-straight year under head coach Wes Kittley.
- Texas Tech's men's (No. 12) and women's (No. 11) track and field teams have each been ranked in the top 20 for the duration of the outdoor season so far.
- The Red Raiders and Lady Raiders currently combine to have nine marks ranking in the nation's top 10 in their respective events.
- If they perform to their regional rankings, Texas Tech athletes are in position to earn 17 berths to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
- Texas Tech's six individual Big 12 titles in Ames were the most for the program at a single conference meet since 2009.
- At the Big 12 Championships, Kole Weldon earned the title of the meet's high point scorer for the second-straight year. His 26 points were the most scored at the championships by an individual male athlete since 2005, and he was the first male athlete to repeat as high point scorer since 2009.
Who's Got Next?
Texas Tech track & field will head to Eugene, Ore., for the 2015 NCAA Outdoor Championships, which will take place June 10-13.
Sights Set On Eugene
The outdoor qualifying process simplifies once you hit the preliminary round. The top 12 performances in each event from this weekend will advance to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Making History
Texas Tech has already had eight individuals combine to break 12 different school records this season, with many of those having been broken twice already. Overall, Tech school records have been broken 23 times in 2015.
Last Year At The NCAA West Prelims
Overall, Tech totaled 11 qualifiers across three full days of competition for the national championship meet set for June 11-14 in Eugene, Oregon. The field is highlighted by Kennedy Kithuka (5,000m and 10,000m), Kole Weldon (shot put and discus) and Cierra White (100m and 200m) who each put together qualifying efforts in multiple events.
Kithuka, the Big 12 Performer of the Year, carried momentum from a historic performance at the Big 12 Championships into Fayetteville where he completed the long distance sweep with a convincing victory in Saturday's 5,0000m. The performance came after winning Thursday's 10,000m run with an NCAA West Preliminary meet record time of 29:05.77.
Sophomore Lady Raider Le'Tristan Pledger went on to secure her second-straight trip to Eugene in the 100m hurdles with a strong clean effort. The Kansas City native finished second in her heat and fifth overall with a time of 13.06 - the second fastest time in Tech history behind her school record of 12.93.
The Lady Raider 4x400 relay team consisting of Montene Speight, Amoy Blake, Tiffany Tarver and White, brought the meet to a close with a strong performance finishing third in their heat and seventh overall with a time of 3:32.72 - their second-fastest time of the season.
Last Time Out
The Texas Tech men's and women's track & field teams finished second and third, respectively, at the 2015 Big 12 Outdoor Championships, in Ames, Iowa, on Sunday.
The Red Raiders earned a final total of 126.75 points, third most in program history, and the Lady Raiders tallied 103 total points, which also ranks third in program history.
Hannah Carson won her second conference title of the weekend, earning the win in the discus, with a throw of 53.46m/175-05 on her first attempt of the day, which was good enough to win. That win, paired with her javelin title and All-Big 12 performance in the shot put, earned her 22 team points on the weekend, which was the third-most individual points scored for the meet on the women's side.
On the men's side, Chris Caldwell completed a sweep of the indoor and outdoor sprint hurdles, winning the 110m hurdles with a time of 13.56. He was joined on the medal stand by Tramaine Maloney (13.93), who got fourth, and Darien Tennon (14.02), who got fifth. Those three combined for 19 vital team points.
Kole Weldon took second place in the discus, with a throw of 57.49m/188-07, giving him eight more team points on the weekend. Weldon's 26 total team points earned him the title of high point scorer for the second-straight year. He is the first male to repeat as Big 12 Outdoor high point scorer since 2009, and his 26 points are the most scored by an individual since 2005.
In his career, spanning indoor and outdoor Big 12 championships, Weldon has been responsible for 115 team points, 50 of those coming in the last two outdoor championship meets.
Cierra White earned a pair of runner-up finishes on Sunday, running the 100 meter dash in 11.14, and running the second-fastest wind-aided time in school history, a 22.78, in the 200 meters.
For the second-straight year, the Texas Tech men occupied the top two spots in the men's high jump. JaCorian Duffield (2.24m/7-4.25) won his first Big 12 outdoor title over Bradley Adkins (2.24m/7-4.25) on fewest attempts. The pair combined for 18 team points, throwing the No. 6 Red Raiders into the thick of the men's team race.
Keeping A Watchful Eye
Texas Tech high jumper JaCorian Duffield has received votes in both the April and May editions of the Bowerman Trophy Watch List, as announced by the U.S Track & Field And Cross Country CoachesAssociation (USTFCCCA).
The Bowerman, which debuted in 2009, is presented annually by the USTFCCCA to the most outstanding male and female collegiate track & field athletes in the nation.
Duffield swept both the Big 12 and NCAA Indoor high jump championships earlier this year, clearing what was a personal-best 2.29m/7-6.0 at the time to claim the national title over teammate Bradley Adkins and become the third indoor NCAA Champion in Texas Tech history.
At the next meet in which he competed, the Texas Relays, Duffield started his outdoor season with a bang, clearing a personal-best and school-record 2.31m/7-7.0, which at the time was the No. 1 jump in the world, and is still currently the top mark in the NCAA.
The Big 12's Best
Texas Tech thrower Hannah Carson has been named the Big 12 Outdoor Track & Field Female Performer of the Year.
Carson, fresh off a weekend where she earned the first two Big 12 titles of her career, was voted the winner of this award by the conference's coaches. She becomes the first Lady Raider to win this award, and the second Tech athlete overall to do so, after Kennedy Kithuka won the men's version of the honor, in 2014.
Carson has had an incredible outdoor season for the Lady Raiders. She has won the shot put at fourdifferent meets, the discus at five different meets and the javelin at seven different meets, giving her 16 event titles in 2015, the most recent of those being her Big 12 javelin and discus championships.
Big Time Big 12 Athletes
Texas Tech finished with 10 Big 12 Athlete of the Week awards between the 2015 indoor and outdoor seasons, which is the second highest total by a single team in Big 12 history. Seven different Tech athletes won the award.
Jan. 21 -- Le'Tristan Pledger (Indoor)
Jan. 28 -- Cierra White & JaCorian Duffield (Indoor)
Feb. 11 -- Cierra White (Indoor)
March 25 -- Chris Caldwell (Outdoor)
April 1 -- JaCorian Duffield (Outdoor)
April 8 -- Hannah Carson (Outdoor)
April 15 -- Joseph Richards III (Outdoor)
April 29 -- Kole Weldon & Hannah Carson (Outdoor)
Players Mentioned
