Colorado University Athletics
Track Preps For Indoor Nationals
March 08, 2007 | Track and Field
BOULDER - The University of Colorado is sending four athletes to the 2007 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships hosted by the University of Arkansas this Friday and Saturday, March 9-10 in Fayetteville, Ark. Jenny Barringer will race in the 3k, Stephen Pifer will run in the mile, Brent Vaughn will run in the 5k and Ryan Campbell will race in the 200-meter dash.
Campbell will be the first Buff to compete. The preliminaries of the 200 are set for 7:20 (CST) p.m., with the finals set for an 8:55 start on March 9. Campbell ranks 12th in the 200-meter dash, with a mark of 21.02 set last weekend at the Iowa State Last Chance Qualifier. Rubin Williams, University of Tennesse, owns the best time this season in the 200. He ran a mark of 20.57 at the SEC Championships.
"Making the finals would be pretty good for Ryan this weekend," head coach Mark Wetmore said. "He probably has higher aspirations than that. But there are some pretty good athletes here. It's a banked track, which is something he is new too. If he made the finals, we would all be excited about that."
Campbell is the first male sprinter to qualify for nationals at CU since Lex Butler in 2000. Butler finished ninth in the prelims of the 60-meter hurdles.
"The fact that he (Campbell) advanced to the NCAA and Jeremy Dodson just missed and they are both recent arrivals here indicates that coach Couts is doing a great job of recruiting and in the development of his sprint group and perhaps they will develop into a dependable, varsity scoring force for us," Wetmore said.
Pifer will compete in the preliminaries of the mile on Friday at 6:45 p.m. The finals are set for 6:15 p.m. on Saturday. Pifer ranks 10th in the mile; with his time (4:00.9) coming from his second-place performance at the Big 12 Championships two weeks ago. Leonel Mazano, University of Texas, is the highest ranked racer (3:58.8). Pifer finished second to him in the mile at the conference championship. Last year Pifer earned All-American status with a fifth-place finish.
Vaughn will race at 7:50 p.m. on March 9. Vaughn is ranked 13th (13:48.7) in the 5k heading into the race. He earned All-American honors in the 5k two years ago after placing fifth. Vaughn was ranked 12th heading into last year's nationals and placed 10th overall. The top time in the field is 13:30.7, set by Wisconsin's Chris Solinsky on Feb. 11.
"I'm sure they (Pifer and Vaughn) both aspire to finish higher than they did a year ago," Wetmore said. "Both of them have had excellent workouts since the Big 12. Every year is different and the fields are different, so it is hard to say where they belong on the podium, but they definitely both belong on the podium."
Barringer is the lone women's racer for CU and she will run in the final event for the Buffs. She will compete at 7:50 p.m. on March 10. Barringer ranks 15th out of a field of 16 in the race with a mark of 9:19.6 set at the league championships. Texas Tech's Sally Kipyego owns the best mark in the nation at 8:57.7.
"Jenny is the 15th seed out of 16 people in the 3k." Wetmore explained. "So we will be looking more at the entire field than just at the favorite, Kipyego. I think Jenny can be very high on the podium and that is our goal to manage the entire field, all 15 of them and not just Sally."
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