UK Track & Field’s Thomson Puts Kentucky on Board Night One at NCAATF Indoors

 Kentucky track and field senior Jacob Thomson put the Wildcats on the NCAA Indoor Championships scoreboard with two points in the 5,000 meters on Friday inside Gilliam Indoor Stadium.

Thomson’s two points have the Kentucky men’s team in 27th place with five of 17 events scored. The UK women’s team has yet to score, but will have eight scoring opportunities on Saturday.

The Georgia women’s team’s 33 points are 20 points ahead of second-place Florida with five of 17 events scored. Virginia Tech leads Texas A&M by .5 with 16 in the men’s standings.

Thomson, the SEC 5k Champion placed seventh in 14:17.19. Thomson had to jostle for position throughout the reace as the full field of 16 runners stayed together, varying pace, but never pushing the tempo too hard. He did move toward the front once the pack strung out with about 4k remaining.

He was in the top five entering the last turn, but lost a lot of momentum coming into the final straightaway, and held on for seventh.

“It was good to get points on the board for the team,” Thomson said. “Had to work hard to stay in position throughout the race. Ended up doing well to be in position at the end, and had to fight to hold on for a scoring place.”

For the second year in a row, Timothy Duckworth leads the NCAA heptathlon after day one’s four events. He scored 3,601 points on Friday to lead second-place Hunter Veith (Wichita State) by 169 points with three events to come on Saturday.

The 2018 Southeastern Conference Field Athlete of the Year is seven points ahead of his previous day-one personal best, which he recorded a year ago at the NCAA Championships en route to a silver medal.

Duckworth led second place by 86 points after the first day at NCAAs last year.

Duckworth began the day by winning the 60m (6.84 seconds, 940 points) and then long jump (25’4.75”/7.74m, 995 points) – two of his better events with strong performances. Then in perhaps his weakest heptathlon event, the shot put, he tossed a personal best 44’7”/13.59m to score 703 points.

And after a great first three performances, he raised the bar to conclude the first day in the high jump, clearing a one-centimeter PB 7’1.5”/2.17m to score 963 points.

That clearance was the meet record entering the day, but Sam Houston State’s Tyler Adams ended up going a bar higher, to 7’2.5”/2.20m. Adams is in third place, 204 points back of Duckworth. The UK senior’s high jump clearance was also the best by any British man in heptathlon in history.

Friday qualifiers
McLaughlin cruised into her first NCAA 400m final, running the fastest time of the prelims, 51.34. That time is third fastest ever in a preliminary heat at the NCAA Championships.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn advanced to the 60m hurdles final for the second year in a row. She was second in heat one in 8.02Q, which was fourth fastest time of both prelims combined.

McLaughlin and Camacho-Quinn both advanced to the 200m final. McLaughlin had the third fastest qualifying time, 22.68. Camacho-Quinn was sixth fastest in the prelims in 23.05.

McLaughlin’s 23.68 broke two-time NCAA 200m Champion Dezerea Bryant’s school record by .01 seconds. Bryant ran that time to win the 2014 NCAA Indoor 200m title.

Notes and logistics
Daniel Roberts finished .01 seconds out of qualifying for his first NCAA 60m hurdles final, running 7.81 to place ninth in the prelims, having to recover from hitting the fourth hurdle. That time was. .1 seconds slower than his personal best, which he ran in December.

The Kentucky women’s track and field team entered the meet ranked No. 3, and the men’s team is ranked No. 17.

ESPN3 will stream the meet live Saturday. A re-air of the championship will be shown on ESPN2 Sunday, March 11 starting at 7 p.m. ET.

The Kentucky track and field program qualified 10 women’s, and four men’s entries. UK’s 10 women’s entries are the fifth most of any team in the field. UK’s four men’s entries are tied for 20th most.

UK women’s team has the same number of entries as a year ago. The No. 18-ranked UK men’s team doubled its number of entries from a year ago.

Ninety-three men’s programs and 84 women’s programs are represented at the Championships.

The top-16 declared entries, and top-12 declared relay teams from marks recorded this season qualified for the Championships.

The top-eight scorers in each of the 17 events on the men’s and women’s sides will score points by virtue of their place finish on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. The team with the most points at the end of the meet wins.

A UKTF schedule snapshot

The men’s heptathlon restarts Saturday at 1 p.m. ET. The women’s triple jump with Ebwea-Bile and Latavia Coombs begins at 4:30 p.m., with Olivia Gruver in the women’s pole vault following at 5 p.m.

Track action on Saturday starts at 5:10 p.m.

The UKTF at NCAA Indoor Championships precedent

The UK women’s team earned its best team finish at an NCAA Indoor Championship a year ago, fifth place with 25 points.

The UK men’s team’s best NCAA indoor team finish was seventh in 1996 with 22 points. A year ago, the UK men’s team finished tied for 22nd with 10 points.

—

For the most in-depth coverage of the UK cross country and track and field program follow the @KentuckyTrack social media channels on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as well as on  UKathletics.com.

 ‑ GO CATS –
For more information contact:
Jake Most