Most have been waiting on next weekend, with Millrose and Karlsruhe on tap, for the fireworks of the indoor season to begin. Fireworks started a weekend early, however, as Georgia's Torrin Lawrence sped his way to a collegiate record in the 300 meter dash. A 20.79/48.18 sprinter indoors last year as a freshman, Lawrence set a Collegiate Record of 32.32 in the 300 meters at the Hokie Invitational in Virginia. The mark is also the #5 mark ever indoors:
31.88 - Wallace Spearmon
31.94 - Kerron Clement
31.94 - LaShawn Merritt
32.19 - Robson da Silva
32.32 - Torrin Lawrence
The time puts Lawrence in some lofty company as da Silva, the least known of the 4 ahead of him, was a 10.00/19.96 sprinter back in the 80's/90's and ranked #1 in the world over 200 in 1989. With such an auspicious start Lawrence would appear to be headed for big things this year. He could be one to watch.
At the Texas v Texas AM dual, the Aggies of Texas AM showed that they will once again be a national power on the collegiate scene with some very nice performances in their dual against Texas. Jessica Beard (52.27), Demetrius Pinder (46.03), Curtis Mitchell (20.99) and the Aggies 4x4 squad (3:05.92) all provided performances that indicate they should all be in the hunt for medals this indoor season.
Likewise Texas freshman Marquis Goodwin - 25' 7.5", brings back memories of another former Longhorn - football player/ long jumper Eric Metcalf. Metcalf was NCAA long jump champion for the Longhorns at 27' 2" in 1988 and had a best of 27' 8.25". Let's see if Goodwin can match those marks during his career at Texas.
At LSU's Purple Tiger Invitational we had a couple of interesting competitors. First there was Lolo Jones who ran 8.14 in a preliminary round of the women's 60 meter hurdles. Jones did not run in the final. We also got a Walter Dix sighting as Dix won the men's 60 with a decent 6.62. Nice to see Dix running some 60's this indoor season. He has the turnover and top end speed to potentially run with the likes of Gay, Bolt and Powell, but MUST get involved in the race in its early stages. Working on his 60 should help.
And as usual the oval in Fayetteville yielded some nice marks at the Razorback Invitational. Among the highlights in Arkansas we got Brittany Reese out to 21' .25" in the long jump; April Steiner over 14' 5.25" early season in the pole vault; Walter Davis jumping well with a 55' 9" triple jump; Mike Rodgers winning the consolation heat of the 60 in 6.63 and Alabama Sr Ray Jadusingh winning the open race in 6.62; and Jerome Miller (6.66) over World champion Ryan Brathwaite (6.68) in the 60 hurdles.
A nice lead up weekend to next week's double tilt of Millrose and Karlsruhe.
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