March 14, 2002
Magnolia, Arkansas-The 2002 track and field season was ushered in at Southern Arkansas University Thursday. Competing in the men’s division were Texas A&M University-Commerce, Henderson State University, Southwestern Christian College, Hendrix College and SAU. The women’s field was made up by TA&MU-C, Arkansas Tech University, SCC, HC and SAU.
No team or individual points were kept on the warm but breezy afternoon. The strong wind handicapped performances. In the men’s division, some of the better times turned in were A&M-C’s 4X100 and 4X400-meter relay teams, which clocked 41.56 and 3:21.08, respectively. Derron Herah of SWCC clocked a 53.43 in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles and turned in a 48.27 time in the 400-meter dash. Ricardo Cunningham of SWCC ran an impressive early season time of 1:55.47 in the 800-meter run. SAU’s Tyran Cager cleared 23-6 7/8 in the long jump for the top field event performance.
Others placing first for SAU were Kevin Waalk in the javelin, Chad Stansbury led a one through fifth SAU finish in the 1500 ahead of teammates Joe Fong, Michael Hunt, Allan Reyes and Shawn Beidler and Stansbury also was first in the 500-meter run ahead of teammates Matt Albertson, Tyler Johnson, Matt Quinn and A.J. Stewart.
A&M-C placed first in seven events and SAU and SWCC both had four first-place finishes. HSU had two first places and Hendrix failed to finish first.
The wind appeared to handicap the women even more than the men. A&M-C had eight first-place finishes as they won all the field events except for Shelley Johnson’s first place for SAU in the javelin. SAU and SWCC had three first places each, ATU had two and Hendrix failed to win an event.
Other than Johnson’s first place in the field events for SAU, Kim Gray was first in the 100 hurdles and Adriana Osornio nipped teammate Veronica Villigran for first in the 3000-meter run.
The next meet scheduled for the ‘Riders and Riderettes is March 30 at the University of Memphis.