LUBBOCK, Texas (NEWS RELEASE) – The following is a news release from Texas Tech Athletics:
Fans are invited to welcome home the Texas Tech men’s track and field team, winners of the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championship, Sunday afternoon outside the Sports Performance Center.
The Red Raiders are scheduled to arrive to the plaza located between the South End Zone of Jones AT&T Stadium and the main entrance to the Sports Performance Center around 11:45 a.m. Sunday afternoon. Parking will be available in the lots immediately east and west of Jones AT&T Stadium.
The Red Raiders will return to Lubbock with a title never before donned by a men’s athletics team at Texas Tech: National Champions. Tech won Friday what many are considering to be the most competitive title meet in history, doing so with 52 points – 60 total for the meet – and four school records on the second day of men’s competition.
Divine Oduduru cemented himself as one of the greatest collegiate sprinters in history, winning both the 100m and 200m in nothing less than dominant fashion. The junior ran a 9.86 in the 100m for the second-fastest time in NCAA Championship history and current top ranking in the world.
Not to walk away with a meet record – or without a team title – Oduduru ran a championship-record 19.73 in the 200m, surpassing his own mark from earlier in the season as the second-fastest ever run by a collegiate. Oduduru hops into the second spot in the 200m world rankings. Andrew Hudson tacked on two more points with a seventh-place finish in the 200m.
Combined with a third-place leg in the school-record 4×100 relay, Oduduru contributed 21.5 points to the team’s 60 for the meet. Norman Grimes Jr. broke the school record in the 400m hurdles, running a 48.71 for the fifth-ranked time in the world and eight huge points for Tech.
With other points picked up in the triple jump (Odaine Lewis) and 800m (Jonah Koech, Vincent Crisp), Duke Kicinski was left to clinch the meet with his winning discus throw. Kicinski became the second thrower to win at both the Division I and Division II level, the other being none other than his own throws coach at Tech, Cliff Felkins.
The national title marks the second all-time for Texas Tech Athletics, joining the one Hall of Famers Marsha Sharp and Sheryl Swoopes helped win for the Lady Raider basketball program in 1993.
(News release from Texas Tech Athletics)
