April 4, 2009
AUBURN, AL – The men’s and women’s teams traveled to Auburn, AL, for weekend action at the Tiger Track Classic, hosted by Auburn University. Iowa started off the outdoor season well, earning six regional qualifying marks and a slew of new collegiate bests.
The men’s throwers provided two of the five regional qualifiers with redshirt freshman Nick Brayton (5th, 52.82m) in the discus and Senior John Hickey (2nd, 18.30m) in the shot put. Iowa junior Ray Varner (3rd, 51.82) earned his regional qualifying mark with a top-three finish in the 400-meter hurdles. Varner also helped the men’s 1,600-meter relay team earn their qualifying mark (5th, 3:09.70), anchoring a squad that also included sophomore Steven Willey, freshman Patrick Richards, and sophomore Chris Barton. Junior Zachary Schimp earned his regional qualifying mark (2nd, 62.88m) in the Javelin toss. Junior Adam Hairston also started his outdoor season well, posting a win in the men’s 800 meters with a time of 1:50.56.
For the women’s team, junior Hannah Roeder (1st, 10:40.86) won the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, earning a regional qualifying mark and a new collegiate best. Senior Jennie Docherty earned new collegiate bests in both the 800 meters (8th, 2:14.54) and the 1,500 meters (8th, 4:37.75). Sophomore Tiffany Hendricks also saw new collegiate bests in the 400 (10th, 56.26) and 200-meter dash (17th, 25.02).
The Hawkeyes are set to split competitors between three meets next weekend. Team members will compete at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe, AZ, the Lee Calhoun Memorial in Macomb, IL, or the Jim Duncan Invite in Des Moines, IA. All three meets have events scheduled for Friday and Saturday.