April 20, 2007

MEMPHIS - After being rained out last weekend at the Sea Ray Relays in Knoxville, the Memphis track team will be under additional pressure to perform well this weekend as it travels to the Vanderbilt Relays on Friday.

The Tigers were expecting to have several regional qualifiers last weekend, but with the rainout Memphis has only three meets remaining before the NCAA Mideast Regional on May 10.

"This is a must have meet for us," said Memphis head coach Kevin Robinson. "We were looking to get some qualifiers last week, but we were rained out. Now we're down to the end of the season and we've got to perform well this weekend."

One bright spot for Memphis last weekend was the performance of women's distance runner Emily Malinowski, who broke the Lady Tiger 5000-meter record by an amazing 35 seconds. Saturday, the New York native will be running in the 3000-meter steeplechase in which she also the Memphis record holder.

This weekend the men's team will be looking for big performances from its hurdles group and particularly hurdlers Larry Harris and Amaechi Oselukwue, who have come close to hitting qualifying marks in the 110-meter and 400-meter events.

"The kids are looking good, and they're ready to compete," Robinson said. "We've just had bad luck this season with rain and cold weather. Hopefully, we'll get good conditions this weekend, and we can show what we're capable of."