The Drake University track and field teams are set to compete at the 2016 Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Championship this weekend in Terre Haute, Ind.
The three-day competition begins on Friday, May 13 and culminates with the crowning of the men's and women's team champions on Sunday afternoon at Indiana State's Gibson Track & Field Complex. Action from each day's competitions will be broadcast via The Valley on ESPN3 at the following times.
Friday – 5:50-7:30 p.m.
Saturday – 3:45-6:15 p.m.
Sunday – 11:55-3:15 p.m.
The Bulldogs travel to Terre Haute with 15 competitors that currently rank in the top eight in the conference in their respective events and four marks that lead the MVC.
Drake's sprinters are led by senior Pierce Vincent (Fayetteville, Ga.) who owns the top 100-meter time in the Valley at 10.26 with Demetrius Shelton (Markham, Ill.) and Aaron Chier (Belgium, Wis.) ranking fifth and sixth, respectively. Vincent has also run the fourth-fastest 200-meter time in the MVC while Shelton is sixth. All three plan to be part of the Bulldogs' 4x100-meter relay that earlier this season set the top mark in the Valley at 40.23.
The hurdles look to be an area in which the Bulldogs can collect points as well. Bas Van Leersum (Zaandam, The Netherlands) owns the second-fastest 400-meter hurdle time in the league this season at 52.18 while Hudson Priebe (Chamberlain, S.D.) is fourth after earning all-conference honors a year ago as a freshman.
In the women's hurdles, Virginia Hill (Haymarket, Va.) turned in the second-fastest 400-meter hurdle time in the league at 59.44 two weeks ago at the Drake Relays presented by Hy-Vee. Mary Young (Urbandale, Iowa) also ranks in the top 10 in the events and fifth in the 100-meter hurdles.
Drake's distance runners have made waves all year with Emma Huston (Des Moines, Iowa) breaking four school records, Reed Fischer (Minnetonka, Minn.) coming up a split-second short of a record and Robert McCann (Mississauga, Ontario) winning a Drake Relays title in the steeplechase. That same group aims to add to their standout seasons as Huston runs in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters, two events in which she owns the top times in the league at 4:20.82 and 16:06.55. Fischer will compete in the 5,000 meters, and event he ranks second in the league in at 14:00.28 set at the Drake Relays. Meanwhile, McCann owns the fastest steeplechase performance in the league with a time of 8:47.38 set at the Stanford Invitational.
The Bulldog jumpers have also stitched together a strong season and have trained to be in position to claim an MVC title. Kayla Bell (Bolingbrook, Ill.) and Taryn Rolle (Nassau, The Bahamas) rank second and fourth, respectively, in the triple jump. Bell also ranks second in the long jump among MVC competitors.
In the league's annual pre-championship poll, the Drake women's team was projected to finish seventh with Wichita State as the favorite. The men's polling projected Drake to take sixth place with WSU again the projected favorite.
