The Texas Tech men’s track & field program received a second-place ranking in the week-two U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association indoor rankings.
This stands as the highest ranking in program history, and marks the fourth consecutive week that they have held a top ten ranking.
“I’m excited for our program,” head coach Wes Kittley said. “It is great that Texas Tech is receiving this kind of recognition and we appreciate that, but we know that there is a lot more work to be done.”
10 Red Raider performances were chalked on the USTFCCCA’s Top-10 Marks of the Week board.
The leader of these marks was 60-meter and 200-meter Texas Tech indoor record holder Divine Oduduru. The Nigerian sprinter has totaled five all-time marks in all five races in which he has competed this year.
This past weekend at the Texas Tech Open, Oduduru clocked three top-two all-time Texas Tech marks, two of which were school records. In the 60-meter preliminaries, Oduduru topped his previous No. 2 ranked 6.66 time with a new mark of 6.64. He then went on to claim the new school record title with a 6.58 final mark, also serving as the third-ranked 60m time in the nation.
The next day, Oduduru ran only the second indoor 200-meter dash of his life, the first of which broke a 20-year old school record. This blazing-fast 20.18 run pushed down his previous time of 20.49 and secured the No. 3 all-time NCAA record. His 20.18 time sits first in the world.
Andrew Hudson ran alongside Oduduru, also outpacing Oduduru’s former school record time of 20.49 with his new lifetime-best run of 20.42. Hudson’s mark sits second in the world 200-meter rankings.
A third 200-meter time was thrown into the mix that moved the Red Raiders up in the rankings. Steven Champlin had a lifetime-best run of 20.89 to take a fourth-place meet finish that sits 12th nationally.
Brandon Bray and Drew McMichael also contributed to this upward movement in the rankings with their pole vault performances. Both cleared personal-bests of 5.39m/17-8.25 to go 1-2 in the meet, ranking them thirteenth in the country. The duo also inked their names into the Texas Tech indoor record book at No. 9.
Odaine Lewis and Justin Hall were the last additions to the rankings with their jumps performances from the weekend. Lewis made his marks in both the long jump (7.80m/25-7.25) and triple jump (15.93m/52-3.25) ranking ninth and eleventh in the country. Hall, already ranked in the long jump, put a new triple jump mark on the board at 15.64m/51-3.75 ranked 23rd.
This week, the Red Raiders will host the Texas Tech Shootout, bringing in Abilene Christian, Air Force, Arizona, Arizona State, Butler Community College, Kansas State, North Texas, TCU, Texas A&M Corpus Christi and UTA on February 9-10.
(Courtesy: Texas Tech Sports Communications Department)
