Southern Illinois University
Billy Hayes Invitational
Track Teams Shine At Billy Hayes Invitational
05/11/2002 | 12:00:00 | Track and Field
May 11, 2002
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Southern Illinois University men's and women's track and field teams appear to be peaking at the right time of the year, as each squad's athletes put together some of the best Saluki performances of the year Saturday at the Indiana University Billy Hayes Invitational.
In the final meet before next weekend's Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Championships, the Salukis combined for one school record, three NCAA provisional qualifying standards and eight season-bests in the unscored meet that featured some of the best competition either squad has seen this year.
Highlighting the day was another record-breaking performance by junior Adam Judge. Judge broke his own SIU record for the second week in a row in the hammer throw with a toss of 213 feet, 4 inches. That betters last week's mark of 209 feet, 3 inches by four feet and his previous SIU-record mark of 204 feet by almost 10 feet. Judge placed second in the event to Zach Riley of Ball State, and has now cleared 200 feet in all but one meet this season.
Nearly as impressive as Judge's showing were NCAA provisional qualifying performances from Jaanus Uudmae and Jeff Young.
Uudmae placed first and vaulted himself to the top spot on the MVC season-best list in the triple jump with a personal-best leap of 53 feet, 5 inches. That mark barely missed automatically qualifying the freshman from Tallinn, Estonia for the NCAA Championships.
Young, a junior from Camden, N.J., also barely missed an automatic bid for nationals with a personal-best and first-place time of 13.77 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles. Young and Uudmae are now both listed No. 3 on the SIU all-time outdoor best list in their respective events.
Young and Uudmae appear to be in good shape to return to nationals, and Judge is looking more and more like a lock to make his first appearance at NCAA's after barely missing the cut in the outdoor season. Young was an All-American during the indoor season, placing sixth at nationals in the 60-meter hurdles, and Uudame placed 11th in the triple jump.
The SIU women also had some outstanding showings, as many of their athletes solidified their positions as contenders for conference titles in the Valley.
Korto Dunbar set a personal best and placed fifth in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.12 seconds, tops in the MVC this year. Latrice Gray matched her season-best with a second-place high jump of 5 feet, 7 3/4 inches. Danielle Lawary broke her personal-best mark in the shot put with a third-place toss of 47 feet, 2 1/2 inches. Erin Simone moved all the way up to the No. 2 spot on the Valley 3,000-meter steeplechase list with a sixth-place time of 11:52.7 and Hilla Medalia had a strong fifth-place mark in the triple jump with a season-best leap of 37 feet, 3 3/4 inches.
Each team will be looking to improve upon their fifth-place showings in the MVC Indoor Championships when the MVC Outdoors kick off Wednesday at Northern Iowa University in Cedar Falls, Ia.
