North Carolina State University Athletics
Track Opens With 3 at NCAA Championships
6/7/2011 12:00:00 AM | Track
June 7, 2011
Drake's Championship Central
Men's Outdoor Championship info | Women's Outdoor Championship info
NCAA's Streaming Events
Wednesday's live results | Thursday's live results
Friday's live results | Saturday's live results
DES MOINES, Iowa - Three of the five members of the NC State men's and women's outdoor track and field teams who qualified for this week's NCAA Outdoor Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, begin their competition on Wednesday at Drake Stadium.
Freshman Kenyetta Iyevbele of Charlotte, a surprise qualifier in the women's 800-meter race, begins action at the competition at 7 p.m. (EDT) with her semifinal heat, followed shortly by sophomore sprinter T.J. Graham of Raleigh in the men's 100-meter semifinals at 8:30 p.m.
Sophomore Andie Cozzarelli will run in the women's 10,000 meter finals, beginning at 9:45 p.m.
The finals for the 100-meter dash are slated for 8:02 p.m. Friday, followed immediately by the women's 800-meter final at 8:10 p.m.
The Wolfpack's other two entries at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, sophomore Ryan Hill and redshirt freshman Andrew Colley, will compete in the 5,000-meter run Saturday at 2:21 p.m., a race that will be part of national television coverage on CBS.
A full schedule of events is available here. All events will be live-streamed for free on Drake's Championship Central page.
Live coverage will also be broadcast Friday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (EDT) on the CBS Sports Network and Saturday from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. (EDT) on CBS.
Fans can also follow the results from each event through these live results, or by liking either the Drake athletics Facebook or Twitter pages.
Full results will also be available on GoPack.com, with periodic updates available on the Wolfpack_TF Twitter page.
Here is more information about each of NC State's five entries at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, which begins Wednesday at Drake Stadium.
Ryan Hill
5,000-meter race
Soph., Hickory, N.C. (Hickory High School)
A two-time men's cross country and one-time outdoor track All-American, Hill has been one of the Wolfpack's most decorated student-athletes during his brief career in Raleigh, the city where he lived for 10 years during and after his mother was working on her master's degree at NC State. A three-time state champion at Hickory High and Foot Locker High School All-American, Hill won 2008 ACC Rookie of the Year honors in cross country by finishing 13th at the ACC Championships. He followed up with All-America honors as a sophomore and junior, finishing 23rd in the 2009 NCAA Championships and 22nd in the 2010 NCAA Championships. In track, he has set school records in the outdoor 1,500 meters and the 5,000 meters and in the indoor 3,000 meters. He earned His most recent record came at the Payton Jordan Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., where he posted a mark of 13:31.67, breaking the mark he set last year as a freshman. He has also won back-to-back ACC outdoor titles in the 10,000-meter run. He earned an individual title at the ACC Indoor Championships in the 3,000-meter run and was a member of the ACC-indoor champion distance medley relay team.
Andrew Colley
5,000-meter race
RS-Fr., Williamsburg, Va. (Jamestown High School)
Before he ever competed for NC State as a collegian, Colley opened some eyes with his performance at the U.S. Junior National Cross Country Championship in Spokane, Wash., where he was third overall last spring. It earned him a trip to the 2010 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcsz, Poland, where he finished 42nd overall and second among American runners. He followed up with a sensational redshirt freshman campaign in cross country, finishing in the top 10 at both the ACC Championships and the NCAA Southeast Regionals. He earned all-conference honors in both the 3,000-meter race and the 5,000-meter race at the ACC Indoor Championships in Blacksburg, Va., and followed up with a strong outdoor season. His time of 14:08.43 at the NCAA East Region preliminary meet was not his best of the season, but it was good enough for 12th place at the event and an invitation to his first NCAA Outdoor Championships. Colley's best time of the season in the 5,000 meters came at the Payton Jordan Invitational, where he posted a mark of 13:44.79 to finish in ninth place.
Andie Cozzarelli
10,000-meter run
Soph., Apex, N.C. (Apex High School)
The former three-time high school champion in the 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters and a four-time runner up in the state 4-A cross country meet, Cozzarelli blossomed for the Wolfpack during the 2010 cross country season, earning All-ACC honors with an 11th-place finish at the ACC Championships in Boston. She was in the top 10 of all four of her races during the indoor season, peaking with a fourth-place finish in the 5,000-meter race at the ACC Indoor Championships in Blacksburg, Va. Cozzarelli was in the top five of both the 5,000-meter race and the 10,000-meter race at the 2011 ACC Outdoor Championships in Durham, bringing home All-ACC honors with a second-place finish in the 10K. Her personal-best time of 33:51.89 at the NCAA East Region preliminary was 10th overall and earned Cozzarelli her first trip to the NCAA Championships.
T.J. Graham
100-meter dash
Soph., Raleigh, N.C. (Wakefield High School)
Graham, a three-time letter winner in football for the Wolfpack, returned to track after a three-year hiatus back in January, soon after NC State downed West Virginia in the Champs Sports Bowl. The two-time high school state champion was soon turning in personal-best times during the indoor track season. He ran his best times of the season at the ACC Indoor Championships in Blacksburg, Va., posting a 6.61-second time in the 60, to finish second by four thousandths of a second. He also had a season-best time of 20.79 seconds to finish second in the 200-meter dash. Those times qualified him for the NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas, where he finished 11th overall in the 60 meters to bring home second-team All-America honors. He saw limited action in the outdoor season because of his commitment to participate in spring football practice, but qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championships by posting a season-best 10.37-second time in the 100 at the ACC Outdoor Championships in Durham and qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championships with a 12th-place, 10.47-second performance at the NCAA East Region preliminary meet in Bloomington, Ind.
Kenyetta Iyevbele
800-meter run
Fr., Charlotte, N.C. (OIympic High School)
This time last year, Iyevbele was posting a personal-best time of 2:14 in the 800 meters at Charlotte's Olympic High School and looking for a college where she could pursue a degree in biochemistry, her first step in the long road to medical school. But her running career has taken off since arriving in Raleigh, as a member of head coach Laurie Henes' cross country team and head coach Rollie Geiger's track team. The three-time high school state champion (in cross country, 1,600-meters and 3,200 meters) has been a mid-distance runner for the Wolfpack indoor and outdoor track teams, shaving nearly seven seconds off her best time in the during the regular-season. Two weeks ago, she smashed her best time by another two seconds at the NCAA East Region preliminary meet in Bloomington, Ind., to finish ninth overall. The time of 2:05.87 is the second-fastest time ever posted by a Wolfpack women's runner, topped only by Angelina Blackmon's school-record of 2:05.78.
