Women's track splits for home meet Stanford

FAYETTEVILLE – Arkansas Razorback women’s track and field will continue the 2010 outdoor season with the Stanford and Razorback Spring Invitationals this weekend. The Arkansas distance runners will travel to Palo Alto, Calif. while the remaining squad members compete at home on Saturday.

The Razorback Spring Invitational will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday with the field events and 3 p.m. with the running events. Also competing with the Hogs at home will be Iowa, Kansas, Missouri Southern, Missouri State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oral Roberts, South Dakota State, Tulsa and UMKC.

Freshman Stephanie Brown (800 and 1,500 meters), sophomore Kristen Gillespie (800 meters), senior Megan Jackson (3,000-meter steeplechase), sophomore Taylor Johnson (1,500 meters), sophomore Samantha Learch (800 and 1,500 meters), freshman Natanya Luther (1,500 meters), freshman Leah Orley (400-meter hurdles), junior Miranda Walker (5,000 meters) and junior Shelise Williams (400 meters) will compete at the Stanford Invitational.

Saturday at John McDonnell Field, key entries include sophomore Brittany Hyter in the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles, sophomore Tina Sutej and seniors Janice Keppler and Katie Stripling in the pole vault and the 4×100-meter and 4×400-meter relays.

Last weekend at the UCF Black and Gold Challenge, the Razorbacks picked up event wins in the 400 meters, 800 meters, 400-meter hurdles, triple jump and 4×400-meter relay. Freshmen Martine Borge, Gwendolyn Flowers, Regina George, Caroline McCombs and Rachel Werner and juniors Edina Brooks and Shantel Thompson made their outdoor debuts for Arkansas this weekend.

The 2010 outdoor season has a new process of qualifying to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, in Eugene, Ore., in June. Regional standards or qualifications are no longer in place. In order to advance to the NCAA preliminary rounds, in Austin, Texas for the Razorbacks, a student-athlete must be a top competitor in their event. Each event will take a varied amount of competitors to the prelims and then to the finals. Some events will go straight to a final round in Eugene, Ore.

From the Razorback Spring Invitational, a live stream and live results can be found at ArkansasRazorbacks.com. From the Stanford Invitational, live results can be found at gostanford.com.

Download: 3.27.10 RBack Spring Invit FINAL.pdf