Lady Vols set to host NCAA Mideast Regional

Tennessee will attempt to defend its 2005 team title att Tom Black Track at LaPorte Stadium The 15th-ranked University of Tennessee women will attempt defense of their 2005 region title this weekend, as the Lady Vols join the UT men in playing host to the NCAA Mideast Regional Track & Field Championships Friday and Saturday at Tom Black Track at LaPorte Stadium. Women’s action begins today at 11 a.m. Eastern Time with the high jump. A second wave of field events gets underway at 3 p.m. ET on day one, while the 3:45 p.m. opening ceremonies signal the beginning of competition on the track. The final women’s event today, the 5,000 meters, is slated to start at 9:20 p.m. Saturday’s agenda also kicks off at 11 a.m., with the women’s hammer. Likewise, a second group of field events will start up at 3 p.m., with the 4:45 p.m. opening ceremonies igniting the final day of races on the oval. The women’s team champion will be crowned and all automatic national qualifiers will be determined after the conclusion of the 4x400m relays, which are slated for 8:35 p.m. Head Coach J.J. Clark’s squad, which tallied 82 points to claim its first Mideast crown a year ago in Bloomington, Ind., will face a difficult challenge in 2006, as six ranked teams and many of the nation’s best athletes will be among the field of 416 female athletes and 77 women’s programs in attendance. Joining Tennessee among Mideast teams in this week’s Trackwire 25 are No. 2 Auburn, No. 10 Michigan, No. 11 LSU, No. 20 Alabama and No. 23 Illinois and Southern Illinois. The Big Orange women will enter the meet with a program-best-tying 15 athletes suited up for competition. Among the qualifiers are seniors Ariel Brooks (hammer throw), Patricia Hall (400m, 4x100mR, 4x400mR), Brooke Novak (1500m), Jessica Reust (pole vault) and April Thomas (shot put); juniors Mindy Sullivan (800m) and Leslie Treherne (800m); sophomores Courtney Champion (100m, 200m, 4x100mR, 4x400mR), Shanna Dickenson (discus throw, hammer throw), LaTonya Loche (400m, 4x100mR, 4x400mR) and Cleo Tyson (100m, 200m, 4x100mR, 4x400mR); redshirt freshman Celriece Law (100mH, triple jump) and freshmen Sarah Bowman (1500m) and Leah Soro (5000m). Freshman Kimarra McDonald was chosen by Clark as an alternate for the 4x400m relay. “We’re very fortunate entering this meet,” Clark said. “As far as the people who are competing for us, we’re probably as healthy as we have been all year. “We’ve been building momentum and probably had our best meet of the season thus far at the SEC Championships. We have to keep the ball rolling if we are going to be a factor here and at the NCAA Championship meet.” Among Tennessee’s top performers is Hall, a five-time All-American. The senior from St. Ann, Jamaica, leads the Mideast Region and ranks fourth nationally with a time of 51.77 seconds in the 400-meter dash. That mark enabled the defending regional champion to win the SEC Outdoor title on May 14, making Hall the first Lady Vol ever to pull off a conference season sweep in that event. Like Hall, Bowman claimed an SEC title two weekends ago, becoming UT’s first 1500m SEC Outdoor victor since Jasmin Jones in 1991. The freshman from Warrenton, Va., posted a time of 4:21.10 to seize the conference title and enters the meet ranked third in the region. Treherne nearly became Tennessee’s third champion at the SEC Outdoor meet, finishing second by 2/100ths of a second. The Chesapeake, Va., junior’s career-best clocking of 2:04.66 in the conference prelims earned her the No. 2 seed in this meet and places her fifth on the NCAA’s national list. A senior who is an alum of nearby Farragut High School, Reust soared to second in the region and eighth nationally in the pole vault with her school-record clearance of 13 feet, 7 3/4 inches at the SEC Championships. That mark was good for third at the league meet and was her best showing since winning the SEC title in 2004 at 13-3 1/2. Tyson, a sophomore from Huntsville, Texas, joins Hall as one of UT’s returning Mideast Regional champions. After winning the 200 meters and taking second in the 100 meters a year ago, the eight-time All-American is back to compete in both again in 2006. Tyson will also play a key role, along with 2005 400m runner-up Loche (Bastrop, La.) in Tennessee’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay units, which enter the meet ranked third and fourth, respectively, in the region. Both tandems were victorious a year ago in Bloomington. Novak, a senior from Kaukauna, Wis., headlines the rest of UT’s regional veteran scorers. She was third in the 1500m at SECs this season and enters seeded ninth with a 2006-best of 4:22.89, which she logged on April 1. The 2004 sixth-place regional 1500m finisher is joined by 2005 NCAA qualifiers in seniors Brooks (Miami, Fla.) and Thomas (Albany, Ga.), who were sixth in the hammer throw and shot put, respectively, last season. Thomas is seeded 11th in the shot this time, while Brooks is 21st in the hammer heading into the weekend. Dickenson, a sophomore from Cincinnati; Law, a redshirt freshman from Denver; Sullivan, a junior from Lubbock; and Soro, a freshman from Knoxville’s West High School; all hope to make impacts for Team Orange this weekend. Dickenson is ranked seventh regionally in the discus and 20th in the hammer, Law is 11th in the triple jump and 13th in the 100m hurdles, Sullivan is 12th in the 800m and Soro is 26th in the 5000 meters. “The bottom line is, they have to go run, jump and throw, and they have to go all out,” Clark said. “You can’t hide at this meet, because when you look at just about every event, you see the leading marks in the country. We’ve been training all year so they can handle the load in this type of meet.”