Texas Tech track at NCAA Championships
Texas Tech track and field teams wrap up the school year with the NCAA outdoor championships that start Wednesday in Eugene, Oregon. The four-day meet unfolds at Hayward Field, the men’s competition on Wednesday and Friday, the women’s on Thursday and Saturday.
The Tech men go into the meet No. 6 and the women No. 8 in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association weekly index.
Realistically, the Red Raiders have no chance to win it all this time. That was virtually assured by Terrence Jones’s failing to qualify for the NCAA postseason in the 100 and the 200 meters. The three-time NCAA champion was dogged by a hamstring injury all spring. The men won the outdoor-season national championship in 2019 and the indoor-season national title this year, making that the standard.
The Red Raiders still can make noise. Four Tech men and four Tech women competing this week have scored in individual events at previous NCAA championships.
Texas Tech men’s best hopes at NCAA championships
■ 400- and 1,600-meter relays: Josh Bour, Shawn Brown, Jack Marshall and Antoine Andrews ran Tech’s season best, 38.84, six weeks ago at home. Expect to see Terrence Jones run the anchor leg. In the 1,600 relay, Carl Hicks, Charlie Bartholomew, Bour and Shaemar Uter ran a school-record 3:01.58 at the NCAA West regional.
■ Oskar Edlund, 400-meter hurdles: The junior from Sweden has set personal records in each of the past two meets, running 48.82 for third place at the Big 12 championships and 48.70 for fourth at the NCAA West regional.
■ Omamuyovwi Erhire, high jump: This is the fifth NCAA championships for Erhire. The transfer from Middle Tennessee State has achieved first-team all-America status twice, finishing seventh for the Blue Raiders at the 2022 indoor and fifth for the Red Raiders at the 2024 indoor.
■ Caleb Dean, 400-meter hurdles: The Maryland transfer placed fourth at last year’s NCAA championships — with an undiagnosed foot fracture, no less — and won the 60-meter hurdles at this year’s NCAA indoor. The 48.05 he ran at the NCAA West regional is sixth in the world this year, third among collegians.
■ Ernest Cheruiyot, 10,000 meters: The Big 12 champion in the indoor 5,000, Cheruiyot is ranked second in Division I in the 10,000 with the time he ran in mid-April in Azusa, California: 27 minutes, 52.13 seconds.
Texas Tech women’s best hopes at NCAA championships
■ Anne-Suzanna Fosther-Katta, triple jump: The graduate student from France placed fifth at the 2023 indoor championships and seventh at the 2023 outdoor.
■ Juliet Cherubet, 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters: The Kenyan freshman has been one of the stories of the postseason for the Red Raiders. She was women’s co-high scorer at the Big 12 championships, finishing first in the 1,500 and second in the 5,000. Then she won the 1,500 at the NCAA West preliminaries.
■ Rosemary Chukwuma, 100 meters: A senior from Nigeria, Chukwuma is tied for the fourth fastest women’s 100 in the world this year, a school record 10.88 seconds that she ran at the NCAA West regional in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The three-time Big 12 champion has been fourth and sixth at the past two NCAA outdoor meets.
■ Temitope Adeshina, high jump: The 25-year-old freshman from Nigeria burst onto the scene stateside in January by clearing 6 feet, 5 inches, a top-10 women’s collegiate jump all-time. She’s not cleared that height since, but took fourth at the NCAA indoor.
■ Ruta Lasmane, triple jump: The Latvian senior has achieved first-team all-America status six times in the triple jump. She had three third-place finishes at NCAA meets, a fourth and a fifth before she won her first individual NCAA title at the 2024 indoor championships.
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