LR 4x100 Record Falls at Sun Belt Championship

Meet Results

ARLINGTON, Texas – The Little Rock men's track and field team had its best showing at the Sun Belt Championship in seven years thanks to eight scoring efforts in the Championship's final day on Sunday at Maverick Stadium.
 
Little Rock earned an eighth-place finish and scored 55 total points while setting a new school record in the 4x100 relay and making three alterations to the program's all-time top 10 list.
 
The Trojan men's 4x100 relay team got the day started with the greatest performance in school history. The team of Travion Clark, Dez Mapps, Kendrick Dunn and Michael McGruder ran the race in 40.07 seconds to take second place, just missing out on the victory by 0.02 seconds. But in the process, that quartet broke the Little Rock 4x100 record by 0.42 seconds, a huge change to the all-time program best. That effort scored eight points for the Trojans.
 
In the afternoon's next race, Kennedy Chumba took second in the 1500 finals. The Trojan senior crossed the finish line in a time of 3:53.57, scoring eight more points for Little Rock.
 
The sprinting duo of Mapps and McGruder were not yet done with their point scoring. Both in the 100 finals, Mapps took third place to score six points for the Trojans while McGruder finished fourth to score five points. Mapps' time of 10.29 seconds beat out his previous best by 0.07 seconds and moves him up to third all-time in team history in the event. McGruder was just behind him in 10.34 seconds.
 
Less than an hour later in the finals of 200, Mapps and McGruder again combined to score big for Little Rock. Mapps came in third for the second consecutive race, coming in with a time of 20.79 seconds and scoring six points. McGruder took sixth in 21.16 seconds to score three points for the Trojans.
 
Isaac Lalang capped his championship with another scoring performance, his third of the weekend. After picking up fourth place in the 10K and 3K steeplechase on Friday and Saturday, Lalang took fifth in the 5K on Sunday. The senior's time was 15:11.41, giving him four points to bring his individual championship total to 14 points scored. Chumba also scored for the Trojans in the 5K, racing to an eighth-place finish in 15:16.77 to score one more point for Little Rock.
 
Travion Clark, Ch'kilas Calhoun, McGruder and Mapps ended the night for Little Rock by scoring more points, earning the team four points with a fifth-place showing in the 4x400 relay. The team ran a very fast race, crossing the finish line in 3:13.24. That time puts them fourth all-time in Little Rock history and is the first 4x400 relay to crack the program top 10 since more than six years ago in 2011.
 
Desmond Gulley was Little Rock's representative in the field events on Sunday, reaching 13.65 meters on his final attempt in the triple jump.
 
Select members of the Trojans will now await their postseason fate. The NCAA will announce on Thursday the selected participants for the NCAA West Regional. The meet will be held at the University of Texas on May 25-27. From the west region – west of the Mississippi River – The NCAA takes the top 48 declared athletes in each individual event and the top 24 declared relay teams.