May 23, 2007
WACO, Texas -
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The 2007 NCAA Midwest Regional Track and Field Meet will be broadcast online via the Drake University athletics website. Registration to view the live webcast is required, but registration is free. Click on the link above for more information.
The Baylor track and field team will compete at the 2007 NCAA Midwest Regional on Friday and Saturday, May 25-26, at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Bears enter the meet following an impressive showing two weeks ago at the 2007 Big 12 Outdoor Championships at Ed Weir Stadium in Lincoln, Neb. The Bears recorded five conference championships, including two individual titles by freshmen, and Reggie Witherspoon was named High Point Performer for the third time in his career.
Witherspoon (Marietta, Ga.) took first place in the men's 200 meters, finished second in the men's 400 meters, and ran the second leg of Baylor's championship 4x100-meter relay team. Witherspoon, who transferred to Baylor from Florida before the 2006 season, has earned High Point Performer honors in three of four Big 12 meets (2006 Indoor, 2007 Indoor, 2007 Outdoor).
Freshmen Nichole Jones (Spring, Texas) and LeJerald Betters (Waco, Texas) won Baylor's other individual titles, in their first Big 12 Outdoor meet. Jones won the 800 meters in a school-record time of 2:05.89. Jones, who graduated a year early from high school, became the youngest athlete in Big 12 history to win an conference outdoor championship (18 years, 44 days). Earlier this season, Jones became the youngest athlete in Big 12 history to win an indoor title (17 years, 332 days) when she won the 1,000 meters, setting new Big 12 meet and Baylor all-time records with a time of 2:45.68.
Betters won the men's 400 meters, an event that Baylor has dominated, winning the last seven outdoor titles. Betters, who had already set a personal-best time of 45.62 in the preliminary heats, dropped that time to 45.33, the third-best time in the nation, in the finals. The time ranks him 12th on Baylor's all-time list; elite company as the 11 men ahead own 28 NCAA National Championships and six Olympic Gold Medals.
Baylor will bring 20 individual competitors and four relay teams to this weekend's meet. Witherspoon, along with Courtney Thomas (Kilgore, Texas) and Trey Harts (Lake Charles, La.) will run the 200 meters. Betters leads five Baylor athletes in the men's 400 meters. The Bears qualified seven runners for the regional meet, the most athletes in one event in the nation, but Witherspoon and Kevin Mutai (Round Rock, Texas) will compete in other events.
Jones, along with Lauren Hagans (Little Rock, Ark.) and Danielle Bradley (West Palm Beach, Fla.) lead the Lady Bears in the 800 meters. Lyndsy Bedell (Plano, Texas) ranks fifth in the women's 3,000-meter steeplechase, and Brittany Devereaux (Denton, Texas), coming off a fractured finger on her throwing hand, is ranked fourth in the women's discus.
The Bears made history in their last visit to Des Moines, as Baylor's women's distance medley relay and 4x800-meter relay teams both set all-time school records at the 2007 Drake Relays. The Baylor swept all four sprint relay titles (4x100-, 4x200-, 4x400-, and sprint medley relays), the first time a team accomplished the feat since Illinois in 1944, a span of 63 years.
During the Drake Relays, Baylor won the 4x400-meter relay in a time of 3:02.00, the fastest time in the nation this year. The race marked the 201st time in NCAA history that a relay team ran faster than 3:03, with Baylor accounting for 64 of those times (31.8 percent). LSU ranks second with 13 such occurrences. Baylor has never lost a 4x400-meter relay competition at an NCAA Regional, winning the event the previous three years.
