The University of Akron Athletics
Track Starts Outdoor Campaign; ?Scoreboard Watching? Begins
March 25 | Track & Field
AKRON - The University of Akron track & field programs will start the 2010 outdoor season, traveling to Baton Rouge, La., for the LSU Tiger Relays Friday and Saturday.
This year's outdoor season will vary in how student-athletes qualify for the NCAA Championships. Over the past several seasons, student-athletes would have a set time or distance in order to qualify for the NCAA Regional. From there, the top five from each region would advance, leaving room for some at-large selections too.
This year, there will be only two regional events (Greensboro, N.C. and Austin, Texas), which are actually first round and quarterfinal rounds of the NCAA Championship. The top 96 performers in each event (48 per region) - 48 in the relays (24 in each region) - will compete in their respective first round site. So, instead of reaching a qualifying standard early in the season and being satisfied with that mark, student-athletes will have to rely on knowing how others in their events are doing, knowing they must stay among the top 48 in their respective region to advance to the postseason. The lone exception will be the multi-event athletes, where the top 24 point totals through the conference championships in the decathlon (men) and heptathlon (women) - regardless of their region - will advance to the NCAA Championships, held in Eugene, Ore.
"I am not a big fan of this format, but in reality, the same number of participants will get to go to the two first round sites combined as did that of the NCAA Championship after the regionals (with those who automatically qualified and the at-large berths)," said head coach Dennis Mitchell. "This format will not really affect the top performers, but, what it does is make each meet one which you have to learn to compete and win, which I do like. I like having that specific mark to shoot for, but we should be able to use the benchmark results of the past to give us an idea of a time or mark people need to reach to be among the top 48. The fear is, and there already is some grumbling, that they want to shrink the field for the NCAA Outdoors, similar to how the NCAA Indoors are run. That I am completely opposed to, especially considering all the other sports are expanding their fields."
So, the road to Eugene for the Zips starts this weekend at the prestigious LSU Tiger Relays.
At last year's LSU Tiger Relays, Akron's Stevi Large set a UA and MAC record in winning the hammer and Zach Harper placed fourth in the high jump on day one. On day two, Carrie Kayes cleared a then personal-record of 13-5 to win the women's pole vault. Also claiming a win on day two was Sediah Erskine, who won the 1500m. Allison Lawyer posted an NCAA regional mark in placing fourth in the shot put.
