North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack Track Athletes Compete at USA Outdoor Nationals
6/22/2011 12:00:00 AM | Track
June 22, 2011
US Outdoor Track and Field Championships home page
Meet Schedule | Live results
Television coverage
Friday: ESPN2, 11 p.m.-1 a.m. ET
(Re-air, Saturday, 1-3 p.m. ET)
Saturday: Universal Sports, 3-4:30 p.m. ET
Saturday: NBC, 5-6 p.m. ET
Sunday: Universal Sports, 3-4 p.m. ET
Sunday: NBC, 5-6 p.m. ET
RALEIGH, N.C. – Nearly a dozen current and former NC State athletes will participate in this weekend’s U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which begin Thursday at Oregon’s Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
Leading the contingent will be sophomore Ryan Hill, who won honorable mention All-America honors two weeks ago at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 5,000-meter run. Last year, Hill set the school record in the 1,500-meter run at the USA Championships, finishing ninth overall.
He could be joined by teammate Andrew Colley, a redshirt freshman who has a provisional qualifying time and may be added to the field when competition begins on Friday at 10:40 p.m. (EST).
Colley finished 17th at the NCAA Championship meet, followed by Hill at 19th. Earlier in the season, both participated in the Payton Jordan Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., where Hill broke his own school record in the event with a time of 13:31.67.
“This is a great opportunity for them to go out and run against some of the best distance runners in the country and in the world,” said veteran NC State head coach Rollie Geiger. “It will be an extremely fast race and the chance to get experience on a higher level.
“Plus, running the 5,000 meters at Oregon is always special. The crowd will be into it.”
Live television coverage of the event will be available on several television outlets, beginning Friday from 11 p.m. until 1 a.m. on ESPN. Universal Sports, NBC’s cable network for Olympic sports, will have live coverage from 3-4:30 p.m. on Saturday and 3-4 p.m. on Sunday. Primetime coverage will also be available on NBC on Saturday (5-6 p.m.) and Sunday (5-6 p.m.).
Live results are available throughout the meet at www.flashresults.com.
Also joining Hill and Colley in the 5,000-meter race will be former Wolfpack runner Stephen Furst, a former NCAA outdoor All-American and two-time ACC champion who is now a professional runner and a volunteer member of the Wolfpack coaching staff.
Bobby Mack, also a former Wolfpack All-American in cross country and an All-ACC performer in track, will run in the men’s 10,000-meter race, which begins Thursday at 10:55 p.m. Mack, now a professional runner and a volunteer coach for the Wolfpack track and cross country teams, recently won his first national championship, taking the USA Championships in the 8,000-meter run on June 13 in Carmel, Ind.
Two former Wolfpack women will also compete at the meet, Kristina (Roth) Vegh in the 10,000 meters (10:15 p.m. Thursday) and five-time All-American Julia Lucas in the 5,000 meters (10:20 p.m. Friday).
Five current Wolfpack athletes, led by first-team All-American Kenyetta Iyevbele of Charlotte in the 800-meter run, will also compete in the USA Junior Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which run concurrently at the same location. The top two finishers in each event will qualify to represent Team USA at the Pan American Junior Athletics Championships, slated for July 22-24 in Miramar, Fla.
Iyevbele set the school record in her event in the semifinals of the NCAA Championships two weeks ago and went on to earn first-team honors with her seventh-place finish in the 800, becoming the first male or female in NC State history to earn All-America honors in that event.
She will be joined by four teammates who all redshirted this past season and will be making their NC State debuts. Distance runners Bryan Spreitzer of Cary, N.C., and Matt Schick of Raleigh will both compete for the first time in a Wolfpack uniform. Spreitzer will run in the 5,000 meters, while Schick will compete in the 1,500. Both saw action during the past track season as unattached participants.
Schick’s best time in his event is 3:55.01, while Spreitzer posted a time of 14:30.99 in the Penn Relays Olympic development race.
Freshmen Tremanisha Taylor of Henderson, N.C., and Jule Rich of Cumberland, Va., will compete in the women’s and men’s discus, respectively. Taylor, who won three events as an unattached athlete during the regular season, competes in the women’s discus on Thursday. Rich, who won two events competing unattached, begins his competition on Saturday.
“For those competing in the junior events, this is not only the opportunity to run in at a high level of competition,” Geiger said. “It’s also the chance to make the U.S. Junior National team, as Colley did last year.”
