Islanders? Woolery, Lions? Shallow to Battle for National Title in Men?s Discus
FAYETTEVILLE,
Ark. ? Texas A&M-Corpus Christi senior Hickel Woolery and Southeastern
Louisiana junior Adonson Shallow have been trading punches and titles in discus
events throughout 2009. So it’s only fitting the duo will again face off in the
final discus competition of the year when they meet in the event final on
Saturday at the 2009 NCAA Division I Track and Field Championships.
Two of the Southland Conference’s nine
athletes still competing in the championships entering Thursday, Woolery and
Shallow each qualified for the discus final with top-12 marks in Thursday’s
preliminary round. Woolery, who opened
the entire discus competition with a throw of 180-feet, 1-inch (54.89m), turned
in a great mark with his second throw of 193-02 (58.89m). The Islanders’ lone
national qualifier will be seeded fifth in Saturday’s final. Shallow squeezed
into Saturday after qualifying in 11th place. While his second throw of
184-2.25 (56.14m) would have been good enough to reach the final, the Lion
bumped himself up one spot from 12th overall with a final throw of 186-04
(56.79m). Among the top qualifiers heading into the competition, Sam Houston
State senior Jon Tipton, the Midwest Regional discus champion, had a foul on
his opening attempt and finished the preliminary round in 20th place with his
best mark of 178-08 (54.46m).
Woolery and Shallow join Texas State’s
Kemuel Morales, Southeastern Louisiana’s Cory Roberts, Lamar’s Samuel Kosgei
and Northwestern State’s Cody Fillinich as the Southland’s event finalists at
the 2009 national meet. While Fillinich was forced to wait until Friday to take
part in the final of the men’s javelin, Kosgei, Morales and Roberts were each
in action on Thursday.
Morales came closer to scoring in his event
than any other Southland athlete at the 2009 championships when he placed 10th
in the shot put final. His throw of 60-6.75 (18.46m) was good enough for
eighth-best and a Texas State school record in the preliminary round, but it
was a mark he could not duplicate on Thursday. After fouling on his first
attempt and an underwhelming second throw, Morales nearly hit pay dirt on his
third attempt. The heave traveled 59-2 (18.03m), but left Morales a mere 2.75
inches from reaching the top nine and the three additional attempts that
accompanied a top-nine finish.
Sitting in 20th place following the opening
five events of the men’s decathlon on Wednesday, Roberts rallied on Thursday to
jump into a 19th-place finish with 7,255 points. The Lions’ star athlete had
his best individual event finish of the two-day competition in the javelin when
he placed fifth. Roberts also had 11th-place finishes in the 110 hurdles and
1,500 and placed 18th in the discus and 16th in the pole vault.
Kosgei entered the 10,000 final, the only
event for which there was no preliminary race, with hopes of scoring for the
Cardinals, but failed to keep pace with the lead pack and finished well behind
the leaders. His 18th-place time of 29:45.49 was just more than a minute slower
than his qualifying time.
Sam Houston State’s Lane Dennis was also in
action on Thursday in the semifinals of the men’s 400 hurdles. Dennis
automatically qualified for the second round with a third-place finish in his
heat on Wednesday, but narrowly missed out on Friday’s final despite improving
on his time from the first heat. Dennis placed seventh in his semifinal race
and 13th overall with a time of 50.63.
A pair of UT Arlington sprinters saw their
bids to reach an event final fall just short in the men’s and women’s 200
races. Both junior Jasmine Walls in the
women’s event and sophomore Cordero Gray in the men’s qualified automatically
for the semifinal races after placing third in their respective preliminary
heats earlier in the day. Walls then finished sixth in her semifinal race with
a time of 23.33, missing out on the final by just 0.06 seconds, while Gray
finished eighth in his heat and 16th overall with a time of 21.17. The
Southland’s only athlete competing in multiple events this week, Gray also
reached the semifinal round of the 100 and ran a leg for the Mavericks’ 400
relay team on Wednesday.
Southland athletes competing in events on Friday include Sam Houston State sophomore Darryl Hayes in the semifinals of the men’s 400
and Fillinich in the final of the men’s javelin.
Click here for complete results from Wednesday’s action.
The upcoming NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships being held in Fayetteville, Ark., will broadcast on the Internet as well on CBS
College Sports Network and CBS. There will be three hours of live television coverage on CBS College Sports Network on Friday and two
hours of live coverage on CBS on Saturday. The rest of the meet will feature FREE live online video streaming. Below is the breakdown
of coverage of the meet, complete with video links.
Friday, June 12
- CBS College Sports Network
coverage from 6-9 p.m. CT (no Internet video during this time)
- Video starting at 10 a.m. CT
o Watch
Saturday, June 13
- CBS coverage from Noon-2 p.m.
CT (no Internet video during this time)
- Video starting at 9 a.m. CT
o Watch