Sun Belt Championship Awaits Trojans in Arlington

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LITTLE ROCK – The Trojan track and field teams will face off against the best the Sun Belt Conference has to offer this weekend, taking on the Sun Belt Outdoor Championship at Maverick Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
 
Live results and live video for the entire three-day competition can be found on the Sun Belt's website.
 
Action kicks off Friday morning with multi events and select field events, and the 10K races will be held Friday evening as well.
 
On Saturday, the rest of the event gets going with field events at 12:30 p.m. with the women's long jump. The men's long jump will take place at 3 p.m. The track events start up Saturday at 5 p.m. with preliminary races through 7:45 p.m. with the 3K steeplechases ending the night at 8 p.m.
 
On Sunday, the Sun Belt will contest the remaining field events in the morning and early afternoon including the triple jump at 12:30 p.m. The track event finals will start at 5 p.m. with the 4x100 relay and conclude at 8 p.m. with the 4x400 relays.
 
If current season results play out, Little Rock would post more than a dozen scoring efforts at the Sun Belt Championship. According to current performance lists, Little Rock has the top men's 100-meter time in the Sun Belt this year with Michael McGruder's 10.17 as well as the top women's 400 time with Anika Charles' 53.85 seconds.
 
Little Rock could also get points in the men's 100 from Dez Mapps (fifth), the women's 100 from Anika Charles (second), the men's 200 from McGruder and Mapps (second and third), the women's 200 from Charles (second), the women's 400 from Bless Dupeh (eighth), the men's 1500 and 5K from Kennedry Chumba (eighth and sixth), the women's 400 hurdles from Tyler Kelly (fifth), the men's 3K steeplechase from Isaac Lalang (eighth) and the men's long jump from Desmond Gulley (eighth).
 
The men's 4x100 relay is also on pace for fourth place, the men's 4x400 relay is on pace for seventh and the women's 4x400 relay is on pace for fifth.
 
At last year's meet, the Trojan women came in eighth place with 56 points while the men took ninth place with 17 points.
 
On the women's side, Charles and Rickitha Hicks took third and sixth in the 100, respectively, and then came in fourth and third, respectively, in the 200 to score big for the Trojans. Dupeh was fifth in the 400, and the Trojans got third-place finishes in the 1500 and 5K from Noora Wallenius and Emma Dahl. Dahl also won the 3K steeplechase. On the event's final day, the 4x100 relay team of Dupeh, Hicks, Christina Nickerson and Charles won the race to score 10 more points for the Trojans.
 
The men had a strong 2016 Sun Belt Championship as well with Lalang placing fifth in the 3K steeplechase, seventh in the 5K and eighth in the 10K, Zodani Francois coming in third in the 110 hurdles and Methuselah Lagat taking seventh in the steeplechase as well. The men's 4x400 relay placed seventh to score points as well.
 
The Sun Belt Championship will also be the last opportunity for Little Rock's student-athletes to post times that could qualify them for the NCAA West Regional at Texas in two weeks. The NCAA West Regional takes the top 48 declared athletes west of the Mississippi River in each of the individual events.
 
Currently, the Trojans would have five different entries into the West Regional: McGruder (sixth) and Mapps (31st) in the 100; McGruder (37th) in the 200; and Charles (47th and 36th) in the 100 and 400, respectively.
 
Little Rock has five other marks in the top 100 in the West currently that could be raised at the Sun Belt Championship and get the Trojans into the West Regional: Mapps (50th) in the 200, Charles (71st) in the 200, Francois (57th) in the 110 hurdles, Kelly (86th) in the 400 hurdles and Gulley (80th) in the long jump.