Men's Track Team Moves Up to No. 16
May 21, 2003 | Track and Field
May 21, 2003
LUBBOCK, Texas - Less than 24 hours after placing fourth at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships the Texas Tech men's track and field team moved up two places in the Trackwire 25 Power Rankings to No. 16. The ranking equals the highest ranking of the season for the Red Raiders, and the best ever.
Big 12 pole vault champion Bobby Most slipped one spot in the Dandy Dozen ranking to third behind Brad Walker of Washington and Yoo Kim of UCLA. Most defeated Walker head-to-head at the Texas Relays earlier this year. For the first time in his career, sophomore Chad Pharis is ranked in the Trackwire Dandy Dozen checking in at the 10th position. Pharis took the gold medal in the high jump at the conference championships with a personal record jump clearing 7-feet, 2-inches. Jason Young held steady at the 10th position in the discus after finishing third at in Austin, Texas, over the weekend.
The biggest jumper of the week for was the 4x400-meter relay. The team of Albert Booker, Julieon Raeburn, Matt Stewart and Jonathan Johnson moved up eight spots to third. The team finished second at the Big 12 meet running a season-best time of 3:04.63. Johnson moved up two spots after repeating as Big 12 Champion in the 800, he is currently ranked fifth in the event, while the 400-meter relay's second-place effort over the weekend was enough to move the team of Booker, Raeburn, Carlos Francis and SirDon Lewis into the 10th position.
Both the men and women's teams will begin preparations for the first NCAA regional meet in Lincoln, Neb., May 30-31. Texas Tech had a combined total of 33 athletes record regional qualifying marks over the course of the season. Athletes must place in the top five at the regional meet to advance to the NCAA championships in June.