March 2, 2003
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The No. 9 Purdue men's track and field team finished third at the 2003 Big Ten Indoor Track Championships on Sunday at the University of Illinois' Armory. The men totaled 123 points behind winner Wisconsin with 133 ? and second-place Minnesota with 131 ?.
"After the first day, we were a little up in some areas we didn't expect, but down in others that we'd hoped would be higher," said Purdue head track and field coach Lissa Olson. "So, we figured that we were about average from where we thought we'd be.
"Today, we didn't do quite as well as we'd hoped in the weight throw, but we swept the 1-4 spots in the 60 dash. Overall, a third-place finish is disappointing, because we really thought we could win. To be only 10 points out of first and finish third, just shows that the competition was very tough.
"I have to give Pooh Williams a ton of credit for his performances on the weekend. He PR'd in every single event he participated and won the pole vault. He was just very mentally focused and determined the whole weekend. And Scott Hecht in the shot put yesterday did a great job along with Derek Watkins in the high jump and triple jump today."
The first event of the day was the 35-lb. weight throw with Purdue taking both Scott Hecht and Keith McBride to the finals portion of the event. Hecht finished with a toss of 19.26m (63' 2 ?") for fourth, while McBride was fifth with a throw of 19.12m (62' 8 ?").
In the high jump, defending Big Ten champion Shaun Guice fell to Wisconsin's Brent Boettcher for second place. Boettcher cleared a mark of 2.18m (7' 1 ?"), while Guice finished at 2.14m (7' ?"). Also jumping the high jump was Derek Watkins, who finished fourth for the Purdue men. With a jump of 2.10m (6' 10 ?"), he tallied some unexpected points for Purdue on the day.
In the triple jump, Watkins finished eighth for one point, while running between the high jump and the long jump pits to compete in both events simultaneously.
In the pole vault portion of the heptathlon, senior and yesterday's Big Ten champ Hence 'Pooh' Williams finished first with a jump of almost two feet higher than his nearest competitor. In his attempt at 17' 9", Williams would have set a collegiate indoor American record, but was unable to clear the bar despite the crowd's enthusiasm for the Boilermaker.
Wrapping up the heptathlon, Williams finished as the Big Ten runner-up to Wisconsin's Ryan Tremelling, while setting a Purdue record-score of 5,432 points.
In the 60m dash there were several problems with the timing system and starting gun, requiring two restarts on the race. Purdue's Prentice Stovall won the title with a school-record-tying time of 6.71, Kenneth Baxter finished second in 6.72, Jacques Reeves was third in 6.78 and Joey Harris was fourth in 6.81.
Stovall finished second in the 60m hurdles with a time of 7.90 behind Ohio State's Joel Brown, who finished in 7.80.
Baxter took the Big Ten title, as expected, in the 200m dash with a time of 21.20, while Reeves finished second in 21.47 and Jamar Green finished sixth in 21.75.
Finally, wrapping up the individual events, junior Kyle Orender finished 17th in the 5,000 run with a time of 15:05.98 as the only Purdue finisher.
In the final event of the night, the 4x400 relay, the Big Ten title came down to the wire with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Purdue all vying for the chance at a win. However, with a first-place relay win, Minnesota secured their second-place spot, while Wisconsin finished second in the relay for the title win. The Boilermakers finished fourth with a time of 3:15.53 from the team of Stovall, Green, Dedrick Tillerson and Reeves.
The Old Gold and Black will return to the oval at the NCAA Championships on March 14 and 15 in Fayetteville, Ark., at the University of Arkansas.
-P-