Vollmer Gets Jayhawks Off to Strong Start in Austin
March 28, 2013
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Austin, Texas – Sophomore Lindsay Vollmer‘s runner-up finish in the heptathlon got the Jayhawks off and running at the 86th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin, Texas for the four-day meet that began Wednesday. Thirty-seven members of the men’s and women’s teams will see action this weekend and are poised start to the 2013 outdoor season.
Multi-event specialists Vollmer and Rebecca Neville kicked things off Wednesday in the heptathlon, which ran the duo through seven events in a two-day span. Vollmer posted an outstanding score in her first outing of the outdoor season, recording personal bests in four of the seven events and topping the field in the javelin portion of the competition for the second-consecutive year. When all was said and done, the sophomore claimed a runner-up finish and set a new career-high score of 5,578. The finish puts Vollmer in a great position to earn one of the 24 bids to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in June. A year ago, she qualified with a score 70 points fewer than her Thursday total.
Neville also had a solid two-day outing with her top performance coming in the 100-meter hurdles and the 200 meters. She amassed 4,915 points to earn a 15th-place finish.
The KU distance group had a good outing on the track as it took part in the late-night distance carnival.
Freshman Hannah Richardson started her first outdoor season as a Jayhawk with a bang. Competing in the B-Section of the 1,500 meters, the Kirkwood, Mo. native run away from the rest of the field and crossed the finish line in 4:28.71. Richardson won the race by nearly four seconds. Teammate Natalie Becker also turned in a solid performance in the event, running to an eighth-place finish with a personal-best time of 4:37.69.
In the 10,000 meters, sophomore Evan Landes ran the fastest time of his young career, finishing the six-mile race in 30:09.23. The time earned him a sixth-place finish and puts him in the top-10 of the NCAA rankings earlier in the year. Senior teammate Josh Baden was the next KU finisher, clocking in at 31:38.92 to take 13th.
In the women’s 10,000 meters senior Kyra Kilwein earned a sixth-place finish with a career-best of 36:29.04.
In semifinal action, sophomore Michael Stigler picked up where he left off last outdoor season. Competing in the 400-meter hurdles, the 2012 Big 12 Freshman of the Year finished his lap in 50.83 to record the fastest qualifying time out of 55 competitors. Stigler will run in the nine-man final at 7 p.m. Friday night.
Two more days of Texas Relays action are in store from Mike A. Myers Stadium. The All-American 4×400-meter women’s relay team will take to the track in preliminary action Friday morning, while national champion Andrea Geubelle will hit the triple jump pits later in the afternoon at 2 p.m. Stay updated on all the KU performances over the next two days by logging on to KUAthletics.com and following on twitter at KU_Track.
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