THE WARM-UP LAP: Rod McCravy Memorial Sprints/Hurdles and Throws Preview

If you’re a track & field fan who can be near a computer on Friday and Saturday to watch the two-day Kentucky Rod McCravy Memorial on the SEC Network Plus (online), we’d recommend you do that.

Meet Schedule | Heat Sheets | SEC Network Plus WEBCAST | Live Results

With 16 teams between both genders ranked in the top 25 of the preseason U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Team Computer Rankings and hordes of national individual contenders descending on Lexington this weekend, this just might be the best track & field meet you’ll see until the NCAA Championships in mid-March (no disrespect intended, Tyson and Husky) – and it’s this week’s National Meet of the Week.

Here’s the full list of nationally ranked teams:

Each of the sports disciplines – sprints/hurdles/relays, distance, jumps, throws, and combined events – are stacked with multiple events pitting NCAA champions and/or title contenders against one another, setting the stage for an all-around fantastic weekend of competition.

We’ll focus on the meets’ deepest sprints/hurdles/relays, throws and combined events in this section of the preview, but be sure to check out our advance look at the distance and jumps action – featuring Edward Cheserek of Oregon and a triple jump battle between NCAA champions Marquis Dendy of Florida and Felix Obi of Baylor – here.

One more note: We’ll refer to the "USTFCCCA list" throughout this article, which combines the top marks from last year’s returning athletes and the best marks from this young 2015 season.

We’ll have to wait on the 4×400 relays to see who’s in them, as no names were given on the heat sheets.

Men’s 60 Meters

Remember how we said last weekend that the future of American sprinting was going to be on display? We weren’t lying – from that gold-medal-winning  World Junior Championships 4×100 relay team, Trayvon Bromell of Baylor and Trentavis Friday of Florida State both impressed in their 2015 debuts – but we still didn’t get to see Kendal Williams of Florida State.

Not only will we get to see all three of them in action here at Kentucky this Saturday, we’ll get to see them against many of the best the NCAA has to offer – including five of the top 10 sprinters on the USTFCCCA list.

Here’s the list of the top contenders for the nine-man final, for which the five heat winners plus the next four fastest will qualify:

That’s 11 guys battling for nine spots – without considering the very real possibility of upsets.

Of this group, Wright of Florida is the lone returning NCAA finalist in this event, but many of these men are potential finalists for this year’s championship. Bromell is the defending NCAA and U.S. Junior Champion at 100 meters; Williams is the defending World Junior Champion at 100 meters, scoring the upset over Bromell.

Of particular interest is Florida State’s crew. Friday debuted last week to rave reviews in a 200-meter win that put him up to No. 11 on the USTFCCCA list, and this week we’re scheduled to see the debut of Williams and Whitfield, the latter of whom covered approximately the final 60 yards of his 100-yard kickoff return touchdown in fourth quarter of the 2014 BCS National Championship Football Game in about six seconds. This will be his track debut for Florida State.

Women’s 60 Meters

Same amount of intrigue, same distance, opposite gender: the women’s 60 meters is also slated to be a fabulous competition.

Unfortunately defending 200 meters national champ Dezerea Bryant of host Kentucky is out for this meet, but NCAA veterans and young studs still collide in this event.

Of the 11 main contenders in this event, six of them are vets – like No. 5 Shayla Sanders of Florida, No. 6 Jenna Prandini of Oregon and No. 7 Morolake Akinosun of Texas. The other half is comprised of youngsters like sophomore No. 3 Jasmine Todd of Oregon, frosh No. 4 Ky Westbrook of USC and frosh No. 12 Mikiah Brisco of LSU.

Just like the men’s race, there’s only nine finalist spots up for grabs, and here’s the list of the top 11 women gunning for those berths:

Todd ran the fastest-ever collegiate 60m in the month of January at 7.15 last week in her 2015 debut, and Westbrook wasn’t far behind in her collegiate debut at 7.18 in that same race.

Women’s 60-Meter Hurdles

Same distance, same gender, but with some obstacles to jump over: the women’s 60-meter hurdles is just as top-heavy as its open-track counterpart.

Headlining the field is No. 1 Kendra Harrison of Kentucky, who is the No. 9 performer in collegiate history. She’s up against four other women ranked inside the top 10 of the USTFCCCA lists, including a showdown with former Clemson teammate and fellow career sub-8.0 hurdler Bridgette Owens of Florida.

Harrison, who finished fourth at NCAAs a year ago, isn’t the only national finalist in the field. Sasha Wallace of Oregon also qualified for the final in her NCAA Championships debut, but did not finish. She’s the No. 4 returner in 2015, and this will be her season debut (as it will be for Harrison).

Here’s the top contenders:

Men’s 400

Though not as front-loaded as the three aforementioned shorter races, the men’s 400-meter field is just as deep as any other event in Lexington.

We won’t see Florida favorites Arman Hall, Hugh Graham, Jr., or Najee Glass in this open event (maybe the relay?), but there’s still five of the top 15 men on the USTFCCCA list slated to square off against one another in this timed final (no prelims). Here’s the list of contenders:

The first section features a bulk of the action, as No. 7 Zack Bilderback wrangles with No. 8 Quincy Downing and No. 10 Darrell Bush of LSU, as well as No. 17 George Caddick of Baylor and former collegiate All-American Brycen Spratling (formerly of Pitt).

The second section will pit No. 11 Eric Janise against No. 15 DJ Zahn of Illinois and No. 17 Byron Robinson of Texas.

Also of note is USC’s Ricky Morgan, who was a member of the gold-medal-winning World Junior Championships 4×400 relay. Fellow relay leg Michael Cherry of Florida State will not compete in this event, nor will current collegiate leader Marqueze Washington of Arkansas.

Men’s and Women’s Throws

We interrupt this regularly scheduled sprints preview to bring you this breaking news: the throwing events at Kentucky are going to be every bit as competitive as the track events.

Take the women’s shot put, for example. No. 3 Kearsten Peoples of Missouri will have her hands full with this current season’s top thrower in No. 4 Tori Bliss of LSU, as well as teammate No. 9 Jill Rushin and Miami’s Tiffany Okieme, who projects as a top-15-type competitor following her transfer from Division II Georgian Court. She was the Division II shot put champion a year ago.

No. 8 Brad Szypka of host Kentucky is the top seed in the men’s competition based on the USTFCCCA lists, but he will have his hands full with a pair of SEC rivals who performed exceptionally well during the outdoor season.

No. 12 Nick Vena of Georgia was third at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, while No. 19 Stipe Zunic of Florida was sixth in that same meet. Indoors, however, Szypka was fifth at NCAAs to Vena’s ninth.

In the women’s weight throw, No. 9 Jayla Bostic of Florida, No. 11 Peoples and No. 13 Lea Johnson of Miami all square off, but the biggest point of intrigue might be the homecoming of Shelby Ashe.

Ashe took a year between graduating from high school as the national prep weight throw record holder in 2012 and beginning her college competition career at California in 2013 to train for USA’s World Junior Championships team in the hammer throw. During that year (which resulted in qualification to Worlds) she finished fourth at the USA Indoor Championships in the weight throw with a mark of 71-10¼ (21.90m).

She hasn’t reached the same level since, and this year she transferred back to her home state of Georgia to complete the final two years of her collegiate career. Her aforementioned USA performance would seed her third on the USTFCCCA lists.

Men’s and Women’s Multi Events

The biggest news here is that Georgia is opening up its stable of top combined event athletes. Pentathlon collegiate and World Junior record holder and 2014 NCAA Champion Kendell Williams will make her 2014 pentathlon debut, while men’s teammates No. 1 Maicel Uibo and No. 2 Garrett Scantling will debut in the heptathlon.

Williams is coming off an Auburn meet last week in which she almost set a new career-best in the 60-meter hurdles, and has an early-season 4419 mark by Mississippi State’s Erica Bougard – who beat her at SECs a year ago – to shoot for.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled sprints coverage.

Best of the Rest

• Women’s 400 Meters – Kendall Baisden’s No. 7 rank on the USTFCCCA lists doesn’t do her justice: the Texas Longhorn is the No. 8 performer in outdoor collegiate history after the 2014 outdoor season. She’s up against No. 6 Jordan Lavender of Virginia, No. 10 CoCo Ndipagbor of Miami and No. 22 Shakima WImbley of Miami. No Ashley Spencer or Courtney Okolo in this event; more on those two in a moment.
• Men’s 60-Meter Hurdles – It’s not a deep event in this meet, but the match-up between No. 3 Donavan Robertson of Ohio State and No. 5 Jordan Moore of LSU is a good one. No Omar McLeod of Arkansas, who is the defending national champion in this event.
• Women’s 200 Meters – It’s No. 9 vs. No. 10 on the USTFCCCA lists as Destinee Gause of Florida and Tynia Gaither of USC race for the win, as does two-time NCAA outdoor 400 meters champ Ashley Spencer of Texas. Again, defending national 200 indoor champ Bryant will not compete.
• Women’s 600-yard – How long can collegiate outdoor 400-meter record holder Okolo hold her blazing speed? We’ll find out in this very off-event.  What would it take to get the collegiate all-time best in this event? We had to do some digging, but thanks to the Track & Field Writers Association, we now know the all-time best in this event is 1:17.38, set by Delisa Walton of Tennessee on March 13, 1982. Incidentally, this also the world’s all-time best performance. For what it’s worth, Walton-Floyd and Okolo have similar indoor 400 credentials at 51.21 and 51.56, respectively. Walton-Floyd, however, was a fifth-place finisher at the 1988 Seoul Olympics at 800 meters in 1:57.80. Okolo’s 800m PR (yes, she has one): a third-place 2:15.37 finish at the 2011 UIL Texas State Championships.

  From the way-too-much context department, the fastest anyone in the world has ever run 600 yards in the month of January is 1:18.44 by Baylor’s Egle Uljas of Estonia in Lincoln, Nebraska, in January of 2006. A bonus from the way-too-much context department: that mark is the Estonian record in the event.