SEC Track & Field Outdoor Championship Central
May 13, 2009
NASHVILLE, Tenn., — Vanderbilt’s track and field team will close out the regular season this week as they travel to Gainesville, Fla., for the Southeastern Conference Track and Field Outdoor Championships May 14-17. The meet will be held at Percy Beard Track at James G. Pressly Stadium on Florida’s campus, making it the seventh time the SEC Outdoors have been held there.
Vanderbilt will look to set personal best marks in every event this weekend as it will be competing against some of the nation’s best athletes in Gainesville this week. VU’s young and talented squad looks to improve on last year’s 12th-place finish.
Rita Jorgensen and Jordan White will aim to continue their solid 2009 campaign this weekend by competing in the 800 and 1500 meter runs. Jorgensen will try to improve on her regional qualifying 800 and 1500 times while White looks to join Jorgensen at regionals in Louisville, Ky. at the end of the month. Jorgensen holds the second and third fastest outdoor times in school history in the 800 (2:08.16) and 1500 (4:24.32).
White will try to close out her sensational freshman season on a positive note this week after displaying her distance versatility during the indoor and outdoor season.
Kristabel Doebel-Hickok will be the lone Commodore distance runner competing in Friday night’s 10K while Adrienne DiRaddo, Louise Hannallah, Alexa Rogers and Amanda Scott will run in the 5K on Saturday.
Doebel-Hickok set a new Vanderbilt standard in the 10K as a freshman after clocking a school record 35:40.27 at the Stanford Invite last season. The Marina del Ray, Calif. native has only run the 10K once during the outdoor season (Penn Relays).
DiRaddo, Hannallah, Rogers and Scott have all showed signs of improvement this season in the long distances. Hannallah and DiRaddo clocked season-high times of 17:30.60 and and 17:39.35 in the 5K at the Penn Relays last month.
Teegan Hill and Taylor Jackson will lead the Commodore sprinting corps this week in Gainesville as they will try to qualify for Sunday’s final heats. Hill, looks to continue her strong freshman campaign in the 200 and 400 while Jackson will compete in the 100 and 200.
Hill, a former Texas prep state champion, will try to crack the 54-second barrier in the quarter-mile after flirting with it during the regular season. Hill ran a collegiate personal best 55.01 (No. 3 all-time at VU) at the Ole Miss Invitational on April 11.
Jackson is coming off her best performance of the 2009 season after clocking personal collegiate records in the 100 (12.16) and 200 (24.52) at the Mississippi Open on May 2. Jackson’s 12.16 100-time ranks fourth all-time in the school’s outdoor record books.
Vanderbilt heads into the weekend fresh off a solid performance at the Tennessee Invitational. Four VU athletes competed in Knoxville last weekend and all of them returned to Nashville with at least one first-place finish. Mallory Hitt won the high jump while Hill sprinted to a first-place finish in the 400-meter dash. Katherine Hendricks and Meagan Martin tied for first in the women’s pole vault.
Live stats of the 2009 SEC Outdoor Track & Field Championships will be available via www.gatorzone.com or by clicking here.
A recap and results from each day of the SEC Outdoor Championships will be posted online at vucommodores.com.
