April 18, 2000
This Week
Arizona State men's and women's track teams will travel south to Tucson for the Arizona Elite Classic this Friday and Saturday, April 21-22, at Roy P. Drachman Stadium. No events over the 1,500m distance will be run, as this is a sprint and field meet. First day action will begin at 4 p.m. on the field, with running events starting at 6 p.m. Saturday will begin at 10:30 a.m. with field events, following by running events at noon.
National Rankings
The Sun Devils' men's squad moved up six spots in the third edition of TrackWire.com's rankings and are currently tied for 12th with UTEP. The women remain unranked. In the men's rankings, six Pac-10 teams are in the top 25, leading with second-ranked Stanford and fourth-ranked USC, and followed by Arizona tied at 14th, UCLA tied at 19th and No. 23 Washington. Additionally, all three Arizona universities are represented as Nothern Arizona is tied at 19th. On the women's side, league members UCLA is ranked third, followed by USC in 5th, Stanford in the 14th spot and Arizona in 17th.
Sun Angel Classic Recap
Arizona State's men's and women's track squads won eight events and posted 11 qualifying marks for the NCAA Championships at the 21st annual Sun Angel Track Classic.
The men's 4x100 meter relay was already provisionally qualified with a 39.33 posted earlier this season, but is now automatically qualified for the NCAAs by bettering the mark to 39.01, winning the race. That Sun Devil relay also defeated an unattached team that featured 1996 100m Olympic Champion Donovan Bailey.
Dwight Phillips' win in the long jump and third-place finish in the men's 100m were also provisional marks. He posted a 25-7.5 leap and a 10.28 run. Brandon Strong won the men's 1,500m and provisionally qualified for nationals with his 3:44.01 mark. The men's 4x400 provisionally qualified with a 3:05.67, placing second.
Lisa Aguilera, already provisionally qualified for the Sun Devils in the women's 3,000m, added the 1,500m standard as she won that event in 4:20.67. The women's 4x100m relay also provisionally qualified with a 45.01 win in that event.
The other Sun Devil winners were the women's 4x400m relay (3:40.34), Olivia Mazzaglia in the women's high jump (5-7) and Casey Clark in the men's high jump (7-1).
Only one meet record was broken. Angelo Taylor of Vector Sports Management won the men's 400m event in 44.91, breaking Jerome Davis' (USC) 45.42 mark that was set three years ago.
Mt. SAC Relays Recap
Arizona State distance runners Kelly MacDonald and Fasil Bizuneh set school records while competing at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, Calif.
MacDonald's 10th-place finish in the women's 5,000 meters was a school best 15:55.90, three seconds faster than Lynn Nelson, who set the previous standard in 1984. MacDonald's record-setting performance was her third this season, as she also holds ASU records in the indoor 3,000 and 5,000 meter events.
MacDonald's performance qualifies her for the U.S. Olympic Trials, which will be held in Sacramento, July 15-23. MacDonald's mark also automatically qualifies her for the NCAA Championships in Durham, N.C., May 31-June 3. She joins long jumper Tiffany Greer as the only Sun Devil women to be automatically qualified for nationals.
Bizuneh broke a 31-year-old school record in the men's 10,000 meter run. He posted a 29:13.61 to place 18th at the meet. His time is five seconds better than the mark Jerry Jobski posted for ASU in 1969. Bizuneh's mark also provisionally qualifies him for NCAAs.
Also competing for the Sun Devils was Isaiah Festa, who placed fifth in the men's 5,000m with a 13:54.20. His mark is the second best all-time in Sun Devil records and it provisionally qualifies him for this year's nationals. Mary Duerbeck placed 25th in the 5,000m with a 17:01.07 to round out Sun Devil competition.
Pac-10 Athlete of the Week
Senior Dwight Phillips earned this season's first Pac-10 athlete of the week honors on April 11 as he placed third in the 100m at the Texas Relays with a wind-aided 10.12. In the previous day's qualifier, he clocked a wind-aided 10.11 to win his heat. As the wind was above the NCAA-allowable 4.0 mps in both events, he cannot use those times to qualify for the NCAA Championships. His time was the second fastest in ASU history. The senior from Tucker, Ga. is a six-time All American, holds four school records and is a two-time NCAA runner-up in the indoor long jump.
Outdoor NCAA Championships
This year's National Championships will be held at Duke University in Durham, N.C., May 31 through June 3. The Sun Devil men are looking to improve on last year's 18th place finish while the women are looking to place for the first time since 1996. Tiffany Greer (women's long jump), Kelly MacDonald (women's 5,000m) and the men's 4x100m relay are already automatically qualified. The Sun Devils are also provisionally qualified in seven men's and seven women's events.
Track & Field News
Track & Field News' John Auka and Jack Pheifer are posting updated predictions on the magazine's website for the Outdoor NCAA Championships. Although neither ASU men's or women's teams crack the top 10, a handful of individuals are listed as predictions for top-10 finishes. The include Dwight Phillips (LJ - 2nd, TJ - 7th), Tony Berrian (400m - 8th) and both relays (4x400 - 2nd, 4x100 - 7th) for the men and Lisa Aguilera (1,500m - 7th), Tiffany Greer (LJ - 8th), Kelly MacDonald (5,000m - 9th) and a relay (4x400 - 10th) for the women.
Head Coach Greg Kraft
Greg Kraft, ASU's eighth director of track & field and cross country, has tirelessly rebuilt the Sun Devils' program from probation to prosperity as he enters his fourth year as a Sun Devil. After spending his first two years at ASU rebuilding the program one event at a time, 1999 saw Kraft get some results. During the indoor season, ASU's men finished 11th and the women tied for 32nd at the NCAA Championships. Marcus Brunson (60 meters) and Dwight Phillips (Long Jump) were NCAA runners-up. Six indoor school records were broken. The outdoor season saw three school records fall while the men finished fifth in the Pac-10, just 0.5 points out of fourth place, and 18th at the NCAA Championships. Three conference crowns were won at the Pac-10 Championships. Kraft, 44, was introduced as ASU's head coach July 28, 1996, after spending seven years heading the track & field and cross country programs at the University of South Carolina where he was the 1996 SEC Coach of the Year. During Kraft's tenure at South Carolina, he rebuilt the men's program into a league power and built the women's program from scratch. Kraft also headed the men's program transition from the Metro Conference to the SEC. Kraft, a Cal Poly SLO graduate, is now entering his 20th year of Division I coaching and 11th as a head coach, has long been associated with successful track & field and cross country programs. As an assistant, Kraft tutored 34 All-Americans and individual conference champions while helping guide his schools to four conference championships and three NCAA Top 10 finishes.
NCAA Indoor Championships Recap
The men's track and field team recorded its first top-10 finish in the program's history at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., tying for 10th with 16 points to surpass the previous school-best of 11th at last year's event. The Lady Sun Devils tied for 23rd with eight points, the team's best finish since placing 19th in 1995 and only two points away from a top-10 finish. In the process, four school records were broken. Sprinter Tony Berrian broke his own school record in the 400m event, placing third with a 46.16, topping his record-breaking preliminary (46.26). Dwight Phillips also broke his own school record, placing eighth in the triple jump ( 52-8.75). Phillips earned runner-up honors in the long jump competition for the second straight year, breaking his own school record by almost 1 foot. The distance medley relay placed eighth. Berrian, Phillips and the relay of Brandon Strong, LaVell Robinson-Blanchard, David Burke and Garrett Jensen earned All-America honors. In the women's competition, Lisa Aguilera placed seventh in the mile (4:48.77), while Kelly MacDonald broke her own school record in the 5,000m (16:13.41) to place seventh. Valerie Williams placed sixth with a season-best 20-10.5 in the long jump while teammate Tiffany Greer placed eighth in the same event (20-6.5). All four women earned All-America honors. Host Arkansas won its fifth straight, and 16 of the last 17 titles, in the men's team competition. On the women's side, UCLA took the title while two-time defending champion Texas tied for fifth.
Into the Indoor Recordbooks
The women's squad broke five Sun Devil records this season, more than any other year in ASU record books and the most successful season since four records fell in 1991. The men broke three records during the five-week indoor season, breaking those records multiple times.
Dwight Phillips initially broke the long jump record at the MPSF Championship (2/25) when his 25-9.5 leap broke a 16-year-old record by .5 inch. He topped that leap two weeks later at NCAAs (3/10) with a 26-7.25 mark. In the triple jump, Phillips set a new mark at a Last Chance Meet (3/3) in Baton Rouge, La., of 52-7.5, only to break that one week later (3/11) at nationals with a 52-8.75. Tony Berrian set the standard in the 400m in 1999 with a 46.29, breaking a 21-year-old record. He topped that in the NCAA preliminary (3/10) with a 46.26. In the next evening's finals (3/11), he bettered that mark with a 46.16. Kelly MacDonald set a school standard in the 5,000m the first time she ran the event, at a Last Chance Meet (3/3) in Ames, Iowa. That time of 16:25.35 only lasted seven days, as she bettered it with a 16:13.41 at the Championship. She also posted an ASU-best 9:34.56 in the 3,000m, at a regular season meet, also in Ames. That same event, the Cyclone Classic (2/11-12), Lisa Aguilera posted a 4:44.44 in the mile for a spot in Sun Devil lore. Two school field recrods were broken Feb. 18 at the ASU/UA/NAU Double Dual in Flagstaff, Ariz. Tiffany Greer recorded a long jump of 21-4 to set a new Sun Devil mark while Valerie Williams posted a new high in the triple jump with a 41-0.5.
Trackwire.com Rankings
(as of 4/18/00)
Men
| 1. | Arkansas | 65 |
| 2. | Stanford | 54 |
| 3. | Auburn | 50 |
| 4. | USC | 38 |
| 5. | Texas Christian | 37 |
| 6. | Louisiana State | 35 |
| Baylor | 35 | |
| 8. | Southern Methodist | 30 |
| 9. | Florida | 29 |
| 10. | Tennessee | 28 |
| 11. | Texas A&M | 23 |
| 12. | ARIZONA STATE | 21 |
| UTEP | 21 | |
| 14. | South Carolina | 20 |
| South Alabama | 20 | |
| Arizona | 20 | |
| 17. | Texas | 18 |
| 18. | California | 16 |
| 19. | UCLA | 14 |
| Alabama | 14 | |
| Northern Arizona | 14 | |
| 22. | Georgia | 13 |
| 23. | Washington State | 12 |
| 24. | Clemson | 10 |
| Colorado State | 10 |
Women
| 1. | Louisiana State | 63 |
| 2. | Texas | 58 |
| 3. | UCLA | 48 |
| South Carolina | 48 | |
| 5. | USC | 43 |
| 6. | Arkansas | 40 |
| 7. | Southern Methodist | 31 |
| 8. | UTEP | 30 |
| 9. | Villanova | 28 |
| 10. | Nebraska | 26 |
| Houston | 26 | |
| 12. | BYU | 25 |
| 13. | Ohio State | 22 |
| 14. | Stanford | 19 |
| 15. | Florida | 18 |
| 16. | Kansas State | 17 |
| 17. | Georgia | 14 |
| Arizona | 14 | |
| Rice | 14 | |
| Harvard | 14 | |
| 21. | Syracuse | 12 |
| 22. | Auburn | 10 |
| Colorado | 10 | |
| Akron | 10 | |
| 25. | Wisconsin | 9 |