North Carolina State University Athletics
Track Heads to ACC Championships in Durham
4/20/2011 12:00:00 AM | Track
April 20, 2011
ACC Championship site | Live Results
Friday's television coverage | Saturday's television coverage
RALEIGH, N.C. - NC State coach Rollie Geiger is optimistic about his team's prospects for this weekend's ACC Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium.
The Wolfpack men have multiple All-America sophomore Ryan Hill scheduled to run in two distance events, Thursday's 10,000 meter run and Saturday's 5,000-meter run. He will be joined in the latter race by sophomore Andrew Colley and senior Adam Henken, who have also posted top 10 times among ACC runners this season in the 5K along with Hill.
The distance races have always been good to Geiger, since most of those runners come from his nationally prominent cross country program. But this season he has also been pleased with the depth of his sprinter and jumper corps, and the improvement of his young throwers on the men's team, Nathaniel Williams and Grant Pearce.
The nucleus of that squad helped the Wolfpack finish third earlier this year in the ACC Indoor Championships at Virginia Tech, which matches the highest finish in more than a decade.
The meet begins Thursday at 10 a.m. Follow the action live here. The ACC will also have television coverage on Friday and Saturday through the links above.
The men's team will also get a boost since spring football practice is over. Not only will sophomore sprinter T.J. Graham return to track competition, but so will junior wide receiver Tobais Palmer, who is entered with Graham in the 4X100 relay.
They will be joined by accomplished sprinters A'Tolani Akinkuotu and Benjamin Major III, in hopes of posting an NCAA Regional-qualifying time and competing with Florida State's ACC-leading relay team, which has posted a conference-best time of 38.87 seconds. No other team in the league has posted a sub-40-second time, and NC State's best mark of 41.01 seconds is fourth best in the league.
But that was run without either Graham, who has posted a 10.50-second 100-meter dash this season, or Palmer, a former state champion who posted a 10.56 time in the 100 in high school.
"My only concern is that we haven't had a lot of work with the baton," Geiger said. "You can make mistakes on the handoff. But, if we take care of that, it could be an NCAA qualifying relay team."
Graham and Palmer were cleared to join the outdoor team at the end of spring football drills, which concluded Saturday with the third-annual Kay Yow Spring Football Game at Carter-Finley Stadium. Graham qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in both 60-meter and 200-meter dashes in March, but has competing in just one outdoor meet this season because of his participation in spring football drills.
Hill, who also qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships and was an All-American performer in cross country last fall, has run only one race during the outdoor season, winning the 1,500-meter run last weekend at the Carolina Invitational in Chapel Hill. But he will compete in the longer races this weekend, in hopes of scoring points for his team.
The Wolfpack is also looking for strong performances from junior Brian Himelright, who has the third best time in the ACC in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and junior Kwame Boatwright, who ranks third in the triple jump.
For the Wolfpack women, juniors Brittany Hampton and Lawanda Henry lead the way. Hampton has the ACC's best distance so far this year in the discus at 170-feet, 4-inches. Henry ranks second in the hammer throw and fifth in the shot put.
