Kansas concludes indoor home slate with Jayhawk Classic

LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas men’s and women’s track & field teams will conclude the 2019 indoor home slate with the Jayhawk Classic, January 25-26, inside Anschutz Sports Pavilion. The Jayhawks will welcome 19 teams to Lawrence, including Division I schools Central Arkansas and UMKC.
 
Friday’s action will include four events of the men’s heptathlon, which is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Saturday’s events are slated for a 9 a.m. start, and will include two sessions of running on the track – a morning session which is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. and will have multiple sections for each event, except for the 60-meter dash and 60-meter hurdles, which will be run as qualifying heats, and an evening session which will run one fast section in each event, except for the 200 meters and 400 meters, which will be contested in two sections.
 
KANSAS MEN RANK NO. 11 IN WEEK ONE POLL
Stanley Redwine’s Kansas men’s program was ranked No. 11 in the USTFCCCA week one ratings, released January 22.
 
The Jayhawk men were ranked No. 9 in the preseason poll, released January 10. Last season, the Jayhawk men ranked No. 20 in the week one poll and went on to finish in a tie for 17th at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
 
The Kansas women landed at No. 29 in this year’s USTFCCCA week one rankings.
 
JAYHAWK VAULTERS SOAR IN RENO
Seven Kansas pole vaulters traveled to Reno, Nevada for the National Pole Vault Summit on January 19. Out of those seven Jayhawks, three posted career-best marks and altered the Kansas all-time records.
 
Junior Andrea Willis became the No. 3 performer in Kansas women’s history with a clearance of 4.35 meters (14-3.25 ft.). The mark proved to be a tie for the sixth-best all-time clearance by a Kansas women’s vaulter.
 
Freshman Zach Bradford and sophomore Kyle Rogers moved into a tie for seventh on the Kansas men’s all-time performers chart with clearances of 5.50 meters (18-0.5 ft.).
 
The marks achieved at the National Pole Vault Summit are not recognized by the NCAA for championships qualifying, but if they were, Willis’ 4.35-meter clearance would rank fourth in NCAA Division I. Bradford and Rogers’ heights of 5.50 meters would rank in a tie for ninth in Division I.
 
KANSAS CLAIMS SUNFLOWER STATE BRAGGING RIGHTS
The Kansas track & field teams claimed state bragging rights for the year by winning the KU-KSU-WSU Triangular on January 18. The Jayhawks won 11 of 31 scheduled events to score 235 points, beating Kansas State (220 pts.) and Wichita State (215 pts.) for the third time in the five-year history of the triangular meet.
 
FINLEY SETS SUNFLOWER TRIANGULAR MEET RECORD
For the second time in as many years, Honour Finley set the meet record at the KU-KSU-WSU Triangular in the 400-meter dash. As a freshman in 2017, Finley tied the meet record by clocking with a time of 55.49 seconds. In 2018, Finley broke that record with a time of 55.23 seconds.
 
HOPPEL OFF TO FAMILIAR START
Junior Bryce Hoppel’s 2019 is off to a very familiar start. Last indoor season, Hoppel opened his campaign with wins in both the one-mile run and the 800-meter run at the KU-KSU-WSU Triangular. This year, Hoppel matched those efforts with wins in the same events. Hoppel’s wins at the Sunflower Triangular in 2017 kick-started a season in which the Midland, Texas native won five of the first six individual races he competed in. The only race he didn’t win in that six-race stretch was the prelims of the 800-meter run at the Big 12 Indoor Championship – which he then went on to win the conference title in the event. Hoppel finished the 2017 indoor campaign as a First Team All-American in the 800-meter run, finished eighth in the NCAA final in College Station, Texas.
 
KANSAS WOMEN POST RECORD-SETTING SEMESTER IN THE CLASSROOM
The Kansas women’s track & field team were one of four KU teams to record a team-best semester in the classroom, leading to a department-record 3.11 all-sports combined GPA in the Fall 2018 semester. The KU women’s track & field team recorded a program-best 4.42 GPA for the Fall semester. The Kansas men’s team was able to notch a 2.91 GPA.
 
JAYHAWKS IN NATION’S TOP-25
Five Jayhawks currently rank in the nation’s top-25 of their respective events. For the Kansas men, Paulo Benavides ranks No. 20 in the pole vault with a clearance of 5.29m (17-4.25 ft.) at the season-opening Bob Timmons Challenge.
 
Four Kansas women hold spots in the top-25, with Sharon Lokedi ranking No. 3 in the 5,000-meter run with her school record time of 15:1547 at the Sharon Colyear-Daville Season Opener, freshman Rylee Anderson holds the No. 12 mark in the high jump with clearances of 1.78m (5-10 ft.) at the Bob Timmons Challenge and KU-KSU-WSU Triangular, and junior Andrea Willis ranks No. 24 in the women’s pole vault with a jump of 4.11m (13-5.75 ft.).
 
Three Jayhawks achieved career-best marks at the National Pole Vault Summit, but are not recognized by the NCAA for championships qualifying. If the marks were recognized by the NCAA, Willis’ 4.35-meter (14-3.25 ft.) clearance would rank fourth in NCAA Division I and Zach Bradford and Kyle Rogers’ heights of 5.50 meters (18-0.5 ft.) would rank in a tie for ninth in Division I.
 
Qualification to the NCAA Indoor Championships is based on the descending-order list for the season and adhering to the qualifying regulations/criteria published on www.NCAA.org. For each men’s individual event contested, including the heptathlon, the top 16 declared student-athletes will be accepted into the competition. For each women’s individual event contested, including the pentathlon, the top 16 declared student-athletes will be accepted into the competition. For each relay event contested, the top 12 declared relay teams will be accepted into the competition. The stated maximums are absolute and will not be extended as a result of ties.
 
LOKEDI SHATTERS SCHOOL RECORD, RECORDS NO. 6 MARK IN NCAA HISTORY
Kansas senior Sharon Lokedi got off to a hot start in her final season competing for the Jayhawks. In her first and only race so far this indoor season, Lokedi shattered her own school record in the 5,000-meter run at the Boston University/Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener in Boston, Massachusetts on December 1. The Eldoret, Kenya native was the third-place finisher in the race, but clocked in at 15:15.47, which proved to be the No. 6 all-time mark in NCAA history. Her time proved to be nearly 25 seconds faster than her previous school record of 15:39.05, set last indoor season at the same meet. The raced boasted four of the top-seven all-time marks in NCAA history, with New Mexico’s Ednah Kurgat recording the No. 3 all-time mark of 15:14.78, UNM’s Weini Kelati posting the No. 5 time (15:15.24) and Boise State’s Allie Ostrander notching the No. 7 mark in NCAA history (15:16.38).
 
HOME GROWN
Stanley Redwine’s 2019 Kansas track & field teams boast 32 home-grown athletes from the state of Kansas. Each roster has 16 Kansas-bred athletes representing their home state.
 
FRESH FACES
A total of 31 new student-athletes are currently on the Kansas track & field rosters, including 20 new faces on the men’s team and 11 on the women’s squad.
 
REDWINE SIGNS NO. 3 MEN’S CLASS
According to Track & Field News, 19th-year head coach Stanley Redwine’s 2018 KU men’s recruiting class is the No. 3 signing class is the nation. Coming in behind Georgia and Texas A&M, the Jayhawks made the top-5 for the first time ever.
 
Highlighting the recruiting class is Zach Bradford, a pole vaulter out of Bloomington, Illinois, who represented the USA at the 2018 IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland, where he earned a silver medal. Bradford posted the No. 8 all-time high school pole vault mark, clearing 18-2.5 ft. his senior season.
 
Also highlighting the signing class are Treyvon Ferguson, a triple jumper hailing from Hershey, Pennsylvania, Patrick Larrison, a thrower from Moore, Oklahoma and AJ Bennett, a hurdler out of Spring, Texas.
 
UP NEXT
Kansas will split up to travel to Lubbock, Texas and Ann Arbor, Michigan, February 1-2. The majority of the Jayhawks will travel to the site of the 2019 Big 12 Indoor Conference Championship, Texas Tech’s Sports Performance Center, to compete in the Texas Tech Open, while some of the Kansas distance squad will compete at the Power Five Invitational hosted by Michigan.
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