Men's Results / Women's Results / Saturday Meet Program
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Chukwuebuka Enekwechi scored eight points for the men's side Friday with a runner-up performance at the NCAA Championships, while Devynne Charlton advanced to Saturday's women's 60-meter hurdles finals. Enekwechi had the highest finish at the indoor championships for a Boilermaker since 2005.
Enekwechi competed in the weight throw Friday, and event in which he has finished third nationally each of the last three years. The senior opened with a throw of 22.43m (73-7.25), which put him in the lead. He fell back to second after two throws, which is where he would remain entering finals, despite improving his mark to 22.97m (75-4.25). Enekwechi dropped to third before his final attempt, when he launched his best throw of the day, which travelled 23.65m (77-7.25). That moved him up to second place where he would finish, just five and three quarters inches behind the top mark.
Enekwechi's finish is the highest by a Purdue male since 2005 when Nedzad Mulabegovic finished second in the shot put. His eight points scored for the men's side are the most the men's team has scored since 2013 when the men scored 11, including six from his own weight throw finish. The last time the Purdue men scored more than eight points as a team without Enekwechi on the roster was 2004 when the men had 25 and finished sixth. Enekwechi will have a chance to add to his total Saturday when he competes in the shot put. He has the sixth-best seed mark entering the competition, which is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. ET.
Charlton lined up in the first heat of the women's 60m hurdles prelims. The junior was starting at the NCAA Indoor Championships for the second time in her career, after finishing 12th in the same event a year ago. Charlton came out of the gate and was the first one over the first hurdle. She raced at the front of the pack the entire way and came across the line with a time of 8.08 seconds, which was good for second and an automatic bid to the finals. Her time was just 0.003 of a second behind the top time in the heat. Charlton was the fifth-fastest qualifier into the finals and will race for the NCAA championship Saturday at 5:35 p.m. ET.
Elsewhere Friday, Katie Hoevet competed in the mile. She finished fifth in her heat with a time of 4:38.41, her second fastest time of the season. Hoevet finished one spot behind automatically qualifying and had to wait for the second heat to see if she could grab an at-large spot as one of the two next fastest times. Hoevet ended up finishing 11th, missing the finals by one spot and 0.04 of a second.
Brionna Thomas competed in her first event of the championships. She ran in the women's 400m dash and finished third in her heat with a time of 53.29 seconds. That time was her second fastest of the season, but finished 0.20 of a second off of qualifying for the eight-person final. Thomas finished 11th in the country. She will compete again Saturday in the women's 4x400m relay.
Savannah Carson was the final Boilermaker to compete Friday. The junior was entered in the long jump and opened with a mark of 6.00m (19-8.25). She matched that jump on her third attempt, but did not improve it and finished 16th in the country.
Purdue has five more events Saturday, with Enekwechi in the shot put, Charlton in the hurdles, the men's and women's 4x400m relays and Anaquan Peterson in the triple jump.