Track & Field to Compete at Texas A&M
1/16/2015 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
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NACOGDOCHES, Texas – After sending athletes to three different competitions last weekend, the Stephen F. Austin track and field team will head to College Station for the Texas A&M Team Invitational this weekend.
A small group of Lumberjacks and Ladyjacks will be competing in a pair of events on Friday, the distance medley relay (4:30 p.m.) and 5,000 meters (5:40 p.m.), with the rest of the team making the trip to the Gilliam Indoor Track and Field Stadium at McFerrin Athletic Center on Saturday.
The invitational will be the first team scored meet for SFA this season, with points attributed similar to championship meets (10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1). Saturday’s action is set to start with men’s and women’s long jump, women’s pole vault and men’s high jump at noon while the women’s 60 meters will kick off the running events at 12:30 p.m.
The nine-team field will consist of host Texas A&M, Southland Conference foe Abilene Christian, Baylor, Louisiana Tech, TCU, Texas State, UT-Arlington, UT-San Antonio and SFA. According to the USTFCCCA preseason rankings, the Texas A&M men (4th) and women (2nd) are ranked in the top five nationally and the TCU men also enter the meet ranked 25th in the country.
With only one meet scheduled for the weekend, SFA will be able to take the majority of its roster to College Station. Among those traveling will be four individuals who have already been crowned in the 2015 indoor season, several athletes with top 20 marks in the NCAA and a new school record holder. Cass Brown-Stewart (400m), Shawn Goff (600m), Jamal Peden (long jump) and La’Tricia Griffin (weight throw) each won an individual title at the Arkansas Invitational and Demi Payne (pole vault) broke a school record at the Akron Pole Vault Convention last weekend.
Brown-Stewart, the reigning Southland Conference Men’s Track Athlete of the Week, posted the fastest time in the country in the 400m with a blazing 47.00 seconds one week ago. He also anchored SFA’s 4x400 meter relay to a second place finish on Friday evening. He was joined by Goff, My’Lik Kerley and Joshua Taylor to record the seventh best time in the NCAA so far this season (3:12.43).
Peden’s winning jump of 24-01.50 (7.35m) is currently the 11th best distance in the NCAA and Trey Darty, who took second behind Peden in Arkansas, owns the 19th best mark in the long jump at 23-10.75 (7.28m). Other top 20 marks from Arkansas include Kerley’s 20th best time in the 400m (48.25) and the women’s 4x400 meter relay team of Jessica Hatchett, Cierra Jefferson, Chasity Clark and DeJernel Jordan who have the 14th fastest time (3:46.73) in the event.
Payne had a huge opening weekend in Akron. The senior transfer shattered a 14-year-old program record by eight inches in the women’s indoor pole vault in just her first meet for the Ladyjacks. Payne, who ranks ninth in the country according to the USTFCCCA preseason polls, surpassed 14-01.25 (4.30m) to claim the second highest height cleared in the NCAA this season.
The meet will be available via a webcast on the SEC Network Plus, also available through ESPN3. The links for each day are: Friday - http://es.pn/1IscLXD; Saturday - http://es.pn/1tKZ9Qy. Fans can also keep up with all of the action through live results provided at FlashResults.com.
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