April 28, 2007
PHILADELPHIA - The Auburn track and field teams won two more events as the 113th running of the Penn Relays came to a close Saturday in front of a crowd of over 40,000. Shamar Sands won the men's 110m hurdles college championship, while Kerron Stewart took the title in the women's 100m college championship while earning the award for Oustanding Women's Athlete for Individual Events.
"For the most part I'm pleased with our showing today," said head coach Ralph Spry. "We had a couple of lows, but mostly highs. We had two more champions today. Kerron ran extremely well and really hammered the field in the 100, and Shamar did a fabulous job winning the 110 hurdles. Donald Thomas struggled in the high jump, but it's a tough facility to jump in. All in all, I'm pleased with the effort of the people we brought."
The two titles came just 15 minutes apart, with Sands the first to take his place on the winner's podium. Sands, who Friday posted the fastest time in the prelims of 13.74 seconds, raced to a time of 13.61 in the finals to become the first Auburn man to ever win the 110m hurdles title at the Penn Relays. His time was just off his own school-record mark of 13.55 seconds set last Saturday.
"It was a pretty good race," said Sands. "I got a good start and just stayed compact over the hurdles. I felt comfortable with my race. I was confident because I had the fastest time coming into the finals, and just wanted to take what I did yesterday and do it all over again."
The bad news in the 110m hurdles was that Ty Akins, who entered the finals with the second-best prelims time, was disqualified for a false start prior to Sands' victorious run.
 Kerron Stewart  | |
Shortly thereafter, Stewart became the first Auburn woman to take the 100m crown, easily topping the field that included 2006 winner Kelly Ann Baptiste of LSU with a time of 11.15 seconds, which was .28 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. Stewart fell just short of her goal of breaking the Penn Relays record of 11.10 seconds, but her time still tied her for fourth best in Relays history.
"It was a good race for me and a good time," said Stewart. "I feel good about how I'm running right now. This was just my second race this season and I think I'm where I need to be right now."
Tracy Ann Rowe also competed in the women's 100m, earning a fourth-place finish with a time of 11.54, just behind her prelims mark of 11.50 seconds.
Felix Kiboiywo ran to a second-place finish in the men's Olympic Developmental mile for Auburn. Kiboiywo was not quite able to become the first Auburn athlete to run a sub-four-minute mile outdoors, but still clocked a time of 4:03.95 to earn runner-up status.
In the men's hammer throw championship, NCAA leader Cory Martin finished third with a throw of 68.84m (225-10), while Jacob Dunkleberger was next with a fourth-place effort of 64.36m (211-02). While both marks easily met the regional qualifying standard, neither throw improved on their marks from earlier this season.
Danielle Gilchrist placed eighth in the finals of the women's 110m hurdles championship for Auburn. A slow start resulted in a time of 13.77, which was not as quick as her time of 13.64 from the prelims.
Donald Thomas, the world leader in the high jump, had a disappointing first experience at the Penn Relays, as he failed to clear his opening height of 2.16m (7-1). Just one week ago, Thomas cleared 2.34m (7-8) to post the best mark in the world so far this season.
"This is a great place to perform," said Spry. "We get a lot of exposure here and it's a great recruiting tool for us. I feel good heading out of this weekend. We're leaving healthy and everybody's pretty sharp. So we'll take a week a week to try to scale back a little and then get ready for SECs. I'm excited about where we are right now."
The Penn Relays marked the final competition for Auburn prior to the SEC Championships, which will take place May 11-13 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.