Top 10 Indoor Before SU Goes Outdoor
3/25/2009 10:51:13 AM | Track and Field
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The Orange track & field team is gearing up to change venues and start up its outdoor season this weekend. Syracuse will disperse itself to three distant locations to kick off the 2009 outdoor season. SU's distance squad will take part in the two-day Stanford Invitational, starting on March 27 while the sprints and multi bunch will venture south for the three-day Florida State Relays beginning on March 26.
Freshmen Pat Dupont and Tito Medrano cross international boundaries and look to represent the Stars and Stripes at the 2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championship in Amman, Jordan on March 28. The first-year pairing denotes two of six USA representatives to take on the world in the Junior Men's race on Saturday.
Before the Orange steps outside, SU's top 10 moments of the indoor season are relived here:
(1) Despite being conducted outdoors, Dupont and Medrano represented the Orange at the 2009 USA Cross Country Championships in Derwood, Md. by earning a chance to wear the Red, White and Blue at the 2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championship in Amman, Jordan on March 28. Dupont and Medrano finished fifth and sixth, respectively, with marks of 24:39 and 24:42 in the 8K trial.
(2) Junior Brad Miller not only claimed first place in the field with an NCAA-Automatic qualifying time at the Boston University Terrier Invite, he broke the Syracuse University indoor mile record with a mark of 4:00.19, surpassing Kyle Heath's record of 4:01.68 from last season.
(3) Senior Kyle Heath stamped out a 26-year old record by finishing the 3,000-meter race in 8:00.14, surpassing All-American Jim O'Connell's record of 8:04.80 he set back in 1983. Heath's new standard was at the Alex Wilson Invitational hosted by Notre Dame as a last chance meet.
(4) Syracuse enjoyed a great deal of success at the 2009 IC4A/ECAC Championships at Boston as the women tallied 36 points to tie for third place, matching the best finish at the ECAC Championship under head coach Chris Fox's guidance. The men's eighth-place finish is a 15 spot improvement from last year's T-23rd performance.
(5) The men's team wrapped up the 2009 BIG EAST Indoor Championship with its best showing in 16 years by finishing in fourth place out of 13 conference challengers. Senior Ramon Sosa picked up the Orange's first individual league championship with a first-place, NCAA-Provisional time of 7.87 while classmate Michael LeBlanc dusted the competition for first place in the 60-meter dash with an IC4A-qualfying mark of 6.77.
(6) Sosa and sophomore Flings Owusu-Agyapong toppled respective records in the 60-meter hurdles and 60-meter dash at the New Balance Collegiate at the Armory in New York City. Sosa's NCAA-Provisional time of 7.75 eclipsed his old standard of 7.78 he set at last year's NCAA Championship. Owusu-Agyapong broke her own record for the second-straight meet with a new SU benchmark and NCAA-Provisional mark of 7.38
(7) Junior Jon Buice was the toast of Happy Valley in the heptathlon, not only taking first place, but resetting his old mark of last year for a new Orange school record. Buice's 5,259 points is a new Syracuse standard surpassing his own score of 5,068 points he set last season.
(8) Syracuse collected three first-place finishes at the ECAC/IC4A meet. Owusu-Agyapong matched the NCAA-Provisional qualifying time of 7.44 in the final heat for top ECAC honors. Junior Uhunoma Osazuwa claimed the pentathlon crown with an NCAA-Provisional point total of 3,748 for 10 more Orange points while sophomore transfer Jarret Eaton elicited an SU season-best and NCAA-Provisional qualifying time of 7.24 for the 55-meter hurdles title.
(9) Sosa and Eaton competed with 566 other Division I track & field athletes at the 2009 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championship hosted by Texas A & M in the 60-meter hurdles.
(10) Junior Maegan Krifchin bolted away from 40 other runners for a first-place, ECAC-qualifying run of 2:55.00 in the 1,000-meter race at the Boston University Valentine Invitational.
