Competition ramps up for Texas Tech track and field teams in second home meet
Texas Tech track and field teams opened the season last week, hosting mostly smaller programs in the Stan Scott Memorial. The competition ramps up for the Red Raiders this weekend in the Corky Classic, all 10 schools coming from power conferences.
Kentucky, LSU, Miami and Ohio State are joining six Big 12 programs in the two-day meet at the Sports Performance Center. The LSU contingent includes Sean "Squirrel" Burrell, the two-time NCAA champion in the 400-meter hurdles outdoor.
"It is so important to run (against) the best," Tech coach Wes Kittley said this week, "because then when you see them in Boston at nationals, 'Oh, well, they came to our meet.' ... It makes you realize, 'Hey, I can run with those people,' or 'I can beat those people.'
"I think you gain confidence the more you run, and if you're not in good shape, you realize it right quick and, 'Wow, I've got some work to do.' So I think it's really good early to run (against) good people."
The meet begins with a light schedule of field events at 5 p.m. Friday with event finals in the weight throw, the high jump and the men's pole vault. The rest of the meet is Saturday with field events scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and running events scheduled from 10:40 a.m. to 4:35 p.m.
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In addition to Texas Tech, the other Big 12 teams entered are Baylor, Central Florida, Kansas State, Oklahoma and TCU.
"We've got nine really good teams coming in this weekend, all Division I," Kittley said. "It's going to be spectacular."
Tech is hosting only three regular-season meets during the indoor season, easily the fewest in the seven seasons since the Sports Performance Center opened in January 2018. That's largely due to the ongoing football facilities construction project in the adjacent areas.
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Tech sprinter Alyssa Colbert was named the Big 12 women's track and field athlete of the week after she debuted last week with a winning time of 7.19 seconds in the 60 meters. She transferred to Tech from Northern Arizona, where she was a six-time Big Sky Conference champion.
Colbert ran personal records in back-to-back rounds last week. She said her training made a good time a reasonable expectation.
"We all knew it was coming," she said. "It was all hard work put into it, but it's just exciting to have it there and on paper."
Among the Tech athletes scheduled to open up this week is Caleb Dean, coming off a banner 2023 season in which he won three Big 12 titles in hurdles events and finished second in the 60 hurdles at the NCAA indoor and fourth in the 400 hurdles at the NCAA outdoor. Dean competed at the NCAA outdoor with a broken foot that Kittley said wasn't revealed until he was X-rayed after returning home.
Pro stars spice up meet
Aside from the college teams, the presence of some top professionals and other post-college stars is another attraction on Saturday. That group of women's entrants includes Gabby Thomas, Devynne Charlton, Christina Clemons, Alaysha Johnson, Masai Russell, Tamara Clark, Lynna Irby-Jackson, Ashley Spencer, Cambrea Sturgis, Ruth Usoro and Annicka Newell.
Johnson and Usoro are former Texas Tech stars, Usoro the NCAA champion in the triple jump both indoor and outdoor in 2021. Johnson won her first U.S. title in the 60-meter hurdles last year.
Thomas is a two-time U.S. champion and an Olympic bronze medalist in the 200 meters. Among 60-meter hurdlers, Clemons and Charlton are former world championships silver medalists and Russell set a collegiate record in the event last January in the Red Raider Open.
Clark was part of the U.S. women's gold medal-winning sprint relay at last year's world championships, and Irby-Jackson ran in the semifinal round for the Olympic gold-medal 1,600-meter relay in Tokyo. Spencer in 2016 was silver medalist in the 400 at the world indoor championships and bronze medalist in the 400 hurdles at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Sturgis swept the 100 meters and 200 at the 2021 NCAA outdoor championships.
An invitational field in the men's 60 meters includes Tokyo Olympians Ronnie Baker, who ran collegiately at TCU, and Karayme Bartley, who competed for Tech.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Competition ramps up for Texas Tech track and field teams in second meet
