Texas Tech’s track and field team will conclude the school year with the NCAA Outdoor Championships, which begin Wednesday in Eugene, Ore. The four-day tournament will take place at Hayward Field, with the men’s competition taking place Wednesday and Friday and the women’s competition taking place Thursday and Saturday.
ESPN2 is scheduled to air the games Wednesday at 6:30pm CDT, Thursday at 7:30pm and Friday at 8pm, while ESPN will air the games Saturday at 4:30pm. Additional online streaming is scheduled daily on ESPN+.
The Tech men enter the meet ranked sixth in the United States Track & Field & Cross Country Coaches Association weekly rankings, while the women are ranked eighth.
The men’s team won the outdoor national championship in 2019 and the indoor national title this year, setting the standard. Realistically, the Red Raiders have no chance of winning it all this time. That was all but ensured when Terrence Jones failed to qualify for the NCAA postseason in the 100 and 200 meters. Jones, a three-time NCAA champion, was bothered by a hamstring injury all spring.
The Red Raiders still have room to make a splash: Four Tech women and four men competing this week have scored in individual events at previous NCAA championships.
NCAA West:Texas Tech’s track and field team broke school records with Caleb Dean and the 1,600-meter relay.
NCAA West:Rosemary Chukwuma, Juliet Cervet to be standard bearers for Texas Tech athletics
Texas Tech women’s biggest hopes for NCAA Championships
■ Ruta Rasmane, triple jump: The senior from Latvia is a six-time All-American selection in the triple jump, has placed third three times and fourth and fifth at the NCAA meet and won his first individual NCAA title at the 2024 Indoor Championships.
■ Ann Susanna Foster Catta, triple jump: The graduate student from France placed fifth at the 2023 Indoor Championships and seventh at the 2023 Outdoor Championships.
■ Rosemary Chukwuma, 100 metres: Chukwuma, a senior from Nigeria, tied for fourth best in the world in the women’s 100 meters this year with a school record time of 10.88 seconds, which she set at the NCAA Western Regional in Fayetteville, Ark. The three-time Big 12 champion has placed fourth and sixth in the past two NCAA outdoor meets.
■ Temitope Adesina, high jump: The 25-year-old Nigerian freshman shot to fame in the United States in January when she cleared 6 feet 5 inches, moving into the top 10 of all-time women’s collegiate jumping. She hasn’t cleared that height since, but she did place fourth at the NCAA indoor meet.
■ Juliette Cervet, 1,500m and 5,000m: The freshman from Kenya has been one of the Red Raiders’ postseason talking points. She was the women’s co-leading scorer at the Big 12 Championships, taking first place in the 1,500 and second in the 5,000, before winning the 1,500 at the NCAA West Regional.
Texas Tech men’s biggest hopes for NCAA Championships
■ Caleb Dean, 400m Hurdles: The University of Maryland transfer placed fourth at last year’s NCAA Championships and won the 60-meter hurdles at this year’s NCAA Indoor Meet despite suffering from an undiagnosed broken leg. His time of 48.05 seconds at the NCAA Western Regional was sixth best in the world this year and third best among collegiate athletes.
■ Oscar Edlund, 400m Hurdles: The junior from Sweden has set new personal bests in each of his past two meets, taking third place at the Big 12 Championships in 48.82 seconds and fourth place at the NCAA West Regional in 48.70 seconds.
■ Omamyovwi Elhire, high jump: This is the fifth NCAA championship for Elhia, a transfer from Middle Tennessee State University who placed seventh with the Blue Raiders in the 2022 indoor tournament and fifth with the Red Raiders in the 2024 indoor tournament and is a two-time first-team All-America selection.
■ Ernest Cheruiyot, 10,000 metres: Cheruiyot, the Big 12 champion in the indoor 5,000 meters, is ranked second in Division I in the 10,000 meters with a time of 27:52.13, which he ran in mid-April in Azusa, California.
■ 400m and 1,600m relays: Josh Baugh, Shawn Brown, Jack Marshall and Antoine Andrews ran a season-best 38.84 for Tech six weeks ago at home, with Terrence Jones as the anchor. In the 1,600 relay, Carl Hicks, Charlie Bartholomew, Baugh and Shamar Utter ran a school-record time of 3:01.58 at the NCAA West Regional meet.
