May 19, 2002
MADISON, Wis. - The men's and women's track and field teams finished third and fourth respectively at the Outdoor Big Ten Championships.
The men's race came down to the last event of the day. The host Badgers managed to slip by Minnesota for the win. The Boilermakers finished third with 113 points ahead of fourth place Indiana with 89 points. Penn State was in fifth with 72 to edge sixth place Iowa who had 70. Michigan State (47 ? points), Ohio State (46 points), Michigan (39 points) and Illinois (30 points) rounded out the finishes.
The women's meet was highly competitive with only 11 points separating the second through sixth place finishes. Michigan took the meet with 109 points, while Indiana finished second. Illinois finished third with 93, while the Boilermakers recorded 90 1/3 points. Wisconsin came in fifth with 89 1/3, while Minnesota (83 points), Ohio State (76 points), Penn State (72 points), Michigan State (71 points) and Iowa (37 2/3 points) rounded out the finishes.
Both the men's and women's relay teams began the earned valuable points for team totals. T'Nita Waters, Ragina Harvey, Shannon Kelly and Shanna Carter ran a time of 47.01 to finish fourth behind Indiana. The Boilermaker men ran 40.34 to tie for third with Wisconsin in a tight field. Minnesota's squad won in 40.25, while Indiana finished second in 40.26.
Stovall followed his performance in the relay with a runner-up finish in the 110m hurdles. Stovall ran 14.07, a second away from the winner who finished in 14.06. Rookie Kern Woods placed seventh with a time of 14.77.
Kyle Orender ran a time of 3:52.98 to place sixth in the 1,500m run to give the men's score a boost. The results from the men's shot put catapulted the Boilermakers into second place behind host Wisconsin. Nedzad Mulabegovic finished runner-up to Ohio State's Dan Taylor with an NCAA provisional mark of 18.50m/60-8.50. Nick Swathwood placed fourth with an NCAA mark of 17.87m/58-7.50, earning 14 points in the event for Purdue.
The Boilermaker men slipped into third place following a series of events with no representation, but Jacques Reeves brought the attention back to the Boilermakers. Reeves stunned the crowd by winning the 100m dash in 10.41, just one one-hundredth of a second off his career-best time of 10.40 that he set in Saturday's prelim of the event. Reeves then finished runner-up in the 200m dash with an NCAA provisional time of 20.83. The team score hung in the balance awaiting results in the completion of the triple jump, javelin, pole vault, 5,000m run and 4x400m relay.
"It's hard to rejoice in what I did on the track because I'm really disappointed in my overall performance," Reeves said. "It was a tough loss and I don't think I performed as well as I could have. I was proud of my teammates though. Prentice Stovall showed so much heart and determination. He really stepped up for us."
The women's team found itself in sixth place at the start of the 5,000m run, with only the high jump and the 4x400m relay remaining. Ann Stechshulte, Lindsay Zinn and Barb Wenger all scored in the event where the top-seven ran NCAA provisional times. Stechshulte finished runner-up to Michigan's Katie Jazwinski in 16:35.80. Zinn placed seventh in 16:43.91, while Wenger earned points in 17:06.63 to place eighth. In the last event of the day to be scored, Kristen Truscott finished runner-up in the high jump.
The Boilermaker men earned nine points in the 5,000m run, but it wasn't enough to hold off the Badgers who got 27 points in the event. Donnie Fellows placed third in 14:25.16, while Orender poured it on to finish sixth in 14:34.20. Pooh Williams placed fifth in the pole vault with a mark of 5.14m/16-10.25. Brian Smith placed in the javelin as well for Purdue.