Three Razorbacks advance to Eugene from NCAA West
FAYETTEVILLE – Three Razorbacks advanced to Eugene for the NCAA Championships during the first day of the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds held at John McDonnell Field on Wednesday. Arkansas currently has five athletes set to compete at the NCAA Championships in Eugene.
With a pair of decathletes already qualified for Eugene in Ayden Owens-Delerme and Daniel Spejcher, they were joined by long jumper Ryan Brown along with a pair in the 10,000m with Patrick Kiprop and Amon Kemboi.
The Razorbacks also advanced five to the quarterfinals of the NCAA West meet with Tre’Bien Gilbert and Matthew Lewis-Banks qualifying in the 110m hurdles, Leroy Russell III in the 800m, Roman Turner in the 100m, and Connor Washington in the 200m.
Jumping in the first of four flights in the long jump, Brown produced a season best of 25-4.5 (7.73) to place second among the first two flights of 24 jumpers. Following the third and fourth rounds, held simultaneously, Brown’s mark placed 11th overall with the top 12 advancing to Eugene.
John Baker, jumping the second flight, was third after the first pair of flights with a season best leap of 25-1.25 (7.65). He finished 15th overall, just 1.5 inches from 12th place.
In the final race of the evening, the field of 48 runners in the 10,000m raced with temperatures in the mid-50s.
A trio of Razorbacks – Kiprop, Kemboi, and Emmanuel Cheboson – led the field for various points of the race. Kiprop placed third with a 28:46.99 to earn his first trip to Eugene for the NCAA Championships while Kemboi clocked 28:47.33 for sixth place and will seek to add to his collection of 11 All-America honors.
Involved in a collision with three and half laps left in the race, Cheboson placed 29th in 29:19.08. A protest was filed, but no changes were made to the final results.
Cheboson was in sixth place among a lead pack of 12 at the time and appeared to be clipped from behind. When he fell, five others went down as well.
Qualifying races to Friday’s quarterfinals started with the 110m hurdles. Phillip Lemonious was the first Razorback to compete on the track and he fell at the 10th hurdle after leading the preliminary heat. Lemonious ended up finishing seventh in the heat with a time of 15.19 (2.1 wind).
Gilbert won the fifth heat of the 110m hurdles in 13.50 (0.8 wind) and was third fastest overall with his season’s best. A career best of 13.72 (2.0) had Matthew Lewis-Banks placing third in the sixth heat and joining Gilbert with an automatic qualification to the quarterfinals.
Turner sped to a windy best of 10.18 as the runner-up in the 100m to a 10.13 for Stanford’s Udodi Onwuzurike as the race was aided by a 3.6 wind. Those were the top pair of times recorded in the preliminary heats.
Over 200m, Washington initially claimed the final time qualifier to the next round with a 20.79 (2.0) that placed him fifth in the heat and 24th overall. A disqualification for a lane violation in another heat moved Washington up to 23rd overall.
In the 800m, Russell finished third in the second heat with a 1:49.14 to auto advance. Kieran Taylor just missed qualifying on time with a 1:49.30 as the 24th position was claimed in 1:49.29 by Stanford’s John Lester.
Other Razorbacks in action during the first round of the NCAA West included Elias Schreml in the 1,500 (3:49.46), James Milholen in the 400m (46.64), Jadon Bartholomew in the 800m (1:51.06), Etamar Bhastekar in the pole vault (17-0.25 | 5.19), and Ben Ryer in the hammer (197-3 | 60.12).
