Jayhawk Women Open Outdoor Season Ranked 25th
2015 OUTDOOR PRESEASON RANKINGS
NEW ORLEANS – The Kansas Jayhawk women’s track & field team was slotted 25th in the preseason outdoor rankings released by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Association (USTFCCA) Tuesday. The announcement marked the fifth-straight season the KU women were slotted in the NCAA’s preseason top-25 rankings.
The KU women start their outdoor season inside the nation’s top-25 with the help of 16 All-Big 12 performers returning from last season’s team. Lindsay Vollmer is back for her senior year in hopes of reclaiming her NCAA heptathlon title from 2013. Junior Sydney Conley earned First Team All-America honors in the long jump a year ago and is primed to claim her first Big 12 title in the event after she was just a centimeter shy of her first championship last season.
The Kansas throwing squad will again be one of the Jayhawks’ strongest assets. Junior Anastasiya Muchkayev ranked among the nation’s top-30 in both the shot put and discus last season and is coming off a solid indoor season which saw her claim a runner-up finish in the shot put at the Big 12 Indoor Championships. Junior Daina Levy enters the 2015 season as one of the conference’s top returners in the hammer throw after she climbed as high as 12th in the national rankings last year.
Sprinter Tianna Valentine is also back for her third season in a Jayhawk uniform. She, along with Conley, were a part of the KU’s All-American 4×100-meter relay team that qualified for a spot at last year’s NCAA Championships.
The Jayhawks will kick off the 2015 outdoor season this week at the 88th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. Action from Austin, Texas will begin Wednesday morning at 10:30 a.m., as sophomore Talia Marquez begins competition the heptathlon. Follow the Jayhawks this weekend and throughout the outdoor season by logging on to KUAthletics.com and following on Twitter, Instagram and Vine at @KUTrack.
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