April 19, 2011
OFFICIAL USTFCCCA RELEASE
TUCSON – A weekend that produced 30 personal records for the University of Arizona men’s and women’s track and field teams also produced results in the newest computer rankings as the men shot up to No. 16 in the country while the women continued their steady rise to the No. 8 spot, as announced by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) on Tuesday morning.
The men jumped up 10 positions from last week’s rankings and into the top-25 outdoors for the first time this season and ended an unusual drought in the process. The Arizona men’s team, typically a perennial top-25 program, had not been ranked in the outdoor top-25 since finishing 23rd overall at the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark.
The UA women continued to pick away at the rest of the country, climbing one position to the No. 8 rankings. The women have climbed exactly one spot in each of the weekly computer rankings since the start of the outdoor season.
The USTFCCCA computer ranking system, now in its fourth year of operation, uses mathematical formulae that takes data and performances from the current track and field season and last year’s and determines which Division I teams have the most potential to be successful at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in June. This is the highest ranking for the women in the history of the computer rankings.
The UA men rode the momentum of several of their distance runners opening up in their premiere events to put them back on the map after going unranked to start the outdoor season. The team finished 13th at the NCAA Indoor Championships last month.
Junior Stephen Sambu ran the fastest 5,000-meter time in the country in the Elite Invite section at the 53rd Annual Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, Calif., running the second-fastest time in UA history in 13:34.19.
Just behind Sambu on the NCAA descending order list is teammate Lawi Lalang, who ran almost an identical time of 13:34.62 to set a new UA freshman record in his first career outdoor race at the distance. The performance garnered Lalang the Pac-10 men’s Track Athlete of the Week award.
Sophomore Edgar Rivera-Morales set the best mark of his life and second best in Arizona history in the high jump at the meet with a jump of 2.28m (7-5 ¾). The mark matched the best mark in the NCAA outdoors this season and was just two centimeters shy of the Mexican national record.
The women’s team had a monstrous weekend in Southern California, with 21 athletes setting new personal bests. That list includes freshman Baillie Gibson, who took down Carla Garrett’s 26-year-old freshman record in the shot put with her throw of 17.07m (56-0).
Gibson became the third Wildcat thrower to go over 17 meters this season. Put into perspective, only one athlete had achieved that accomplishment outdoors in 28 years of Division I competition in the event prior to this season.
Sophomore Brigetta Barrett also set a national-leading mark in his victory in the women’s high jump with a season’s best clearance of 1.90m (6-2 ¾). The mark also puts Barrett in a tie for the top jump in the world early in this 2011 outdoor season. Barrett was named as the Pac-10 women’s Field Athlete of the Week for the feat.
The Wildcats will have a relatively laid back weekend coming up after several consecutive highly competitive track and field meets. A small group of student-athletes will split action between the BYU Challenge in Prove, Utah and the Triton Invitational in La Jolla, Calif. The remainder of the team will have the weekend off in preparation for next weekend’s dual meet with Arizona State and Northern Arizona in Tempe, Ariz.
