The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Track And Field Set Outdoor Championship
5/8/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track & Field
May 8, 2013
Championship Central | Meet Schedule
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--The UAB track and field team is set to compete at the Conference USA Track and Field Championship, hosted by Rice in Houston, Texas, May 9-12.
"The C-USA championships are the culmination of our entire year for the majority of our team," head coach Kurt Thomas said. "We work to have personal bests and be successful through cross country, indoor and during outdoor, but these conference championships end our year and as a whole team, everyone gets a little more excited about them.
Thursday's events will begin with the first day of the heptathlon at 4 p.m. CT, while Friday's events start at 2:30 p.m. with the hammer throw and will end with the men's and women's 10,000m at 8 p.m. CT.
Saturday's field events are scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. CT with the long jump, while the preliminary running events start at 6 p.m. CT with the women's 1,500m. Sunday's field finals are set to begin at 5 p.m. CT, while the finals for the running events will begin at 6 p.m. CT.
"We came off of our third place team finish indoors and looked to build on that for outdoors," Thomas said. "We add some events we're strong in outdoors, like the 10,000m, 400m hurdles. Unfortunately we've had a few injuries to some jumpers, distance runners that we're nursing, so our depth takes a hit. But we're still very strong at our top and we're looking to have a few conference champions, several all conference performers, and score points in every event we enter. I think we have that ability and that could make for a very good meet for us."
Senior Sarah Hudak looks to defend her title in the 1,500m, and owns the third overall seed time in the first of two preliminary races, while junior Elinor Kirk looks to continue her success from the 2013 C-USA Indoor Championships, where she was the top overall scorer on the women's side. In the 10,000m, redshirt senior Rhiannon Johns looks to top the school record time of 33:29.99, which she posted at the Stanford Invite on March 30.
"Rhi (Johns) is going after her third CUSA 10,000m title, so that will fun to cheer for and watch," Thomas said. "Sarah (Hudak) and Eli (Kirk) are going after a lot of points in the distance events and can hopefully leave with a few conference event titles."
UAB will also have teams racing in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, which have seen overall success throughout the season. At the Auburn Classic (April 6), the 4x100m relay team posted a 45.53 finish, while the 4x400m relay team posted a season-best time of 3:43.13 at the Vanderbilt Invite on April 30.
"Our relays are in good position to finish in the top two through five in the conference and score good points," Thomas said. "Angel (Watson), Alexis (Bates), Shakima (Knox), Kyana (White) are all in position to make tough sprint event finals and, I think we have the ability to score a lot of points in the 400m hurdles with Rachel, Lytrice and Autumn running well."
The 400m hurdles preliminary races are set for 8 p.m. CT on Saturday, while the preliminary races in the 200m dash are set for 8:30 p.m. CT.
