May 11, 2012

C-USA Outdoor Day 1

NEW ORLEANS, La.- Memphis athletes battled the rain and the best of Conference USA in day one of the C-USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships on Friday. The Tigers got off to a strong start as the post-season officially began picking up early men's and women's team points.

"I am very excited with how we got started today," said head coach Kevin Robinson. "The elements were very difficult to deal with, but we showed a lot of poise and maturity as we battled through it. Hopefully, this will propel us to bigger and better performances through the next two days."

The women garnered eight points in the hammer throw as Britta Jaarats (50.93m, 167'01", 6 team points) took the bronze medal . Teammate Cyarra Wells (46.87m, 153'09", 2 team points) finished seventh.

The Tiger men wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard as Will Hubber (52.32m, 171'08", 5 team points), Andrew Miller (50.55m, 165'10", 4 team points) and Tom Willcox (50.45m, 165'06", team points) finished fourth, fifth and sixth in the hammer throw to register 12 points for the men. Daniel Kuhman reeled in another point for the men, finishing eighth in the 10,000m run with a time of 31:39.51.

After the first three events of the heptathlon Xenia Rahn (3,119 points), Laura Toldy (2,940 points) and Quaniqua Jones (2,927 points) landed in fourth, seventh and eighth place respectively. Toldy cleared a personal-best of 1.76m (5'09.25") in the heptathlon high jump, a mark that secures the sophomore a spot in the NCAA East Preliminary open high jump.

In the decathlon freshman Marc Klaschka (3,539 points) finished the day in fourth place after the first five events. Fellow freshman Tim Jones (3,054 points) ended the day in seventh.

Day two of the C-USA Outdoor Championships resumes Saturday at 11 a.m. CT with the completion of the decathlon and heptathlon. Results from the event will be posted on GoTigersGo.com as they become available.