University of Minnesota Athletics
University of Minnesota
Big Ten Indoor Championships
Gophers Finish Fifth at Big Ten Championships
2/23/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track & Field
Feb. 23, 2013
GENEVA, Ohio - For the second year in a row, the No. 15 Minnesota men's indoor track and field team came within four team points of the Gophers' fifth team title, finishing fifth at the 2013 Big Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships with 86 total points. In the closest competition since 2003, Wisconsin captured this year's conference crown with 90 points followed by Illinois (87.5), Penn State (87), Nebraska (86.666) and the Gophers.
Senior Harun Abda earned First Team All-Big Ten honors while Cameron Boy, Jacob Capek and Goaner Deng picked up Second Team accolades.
Abda paced the Gophers and contributed with finals performances in three different events. Abda narrowly missed out on the 600-meter run crown with his runner-up time of 1:15.80 - the Big Ten championships marked Abda's first competition in the event this season. The senior also made his first appearance of the year in the 400-meter run, finishing fourth at 47.32 - Minnesota's top time this season -- and was a member of Minnesota's 4x400 relay team along with Capek, Boy and Deng that finished second at 3:07.19. The mark was the fifth-fastest time in Gopher men's indoor history and the fastest this season.
The Gophers had two of the of the top times in Saturday's 60-meter dash final as senior Sean King came in second at 6.77 and newcomer Devin Crawford-Tufts followed one spot back in third at 6.80. Crawford-Tufts also placed eighth in the 200-meter dash finals at 35.11 while Boy finished fifth at 21.27.
After posting the meet's fastest preliminary time on Friday, Nick Hutton picked up a fifth-place finish in the one-mile run on Saturday with a time of 4:03.79 while Alex Brend came in seventh at 4:04.99.
In the long jump, Oladip Fagbemi posted the seventh-longest jump in school history at 7.46 meters to finish fifth while Sam Kettenhofen also tallied a personal record at 7.43 meters to finish sixth. Fagbemi also finished sixth in the triple jump at 15.36 meters - his top performance of the year in the event.
Additionally, Jon Lehman finished fourth in the weight throw at 21.79 meters while Travis Burkstrand finished fourth in the 800-meter run at 1:50.38. Jack Szmanda finished fifth in the pole vault at 5.22 meters and an eighth-place finish in the heptathlon with 2,892 points.
On Friday, the distance medley relay team of Burkstrand, Hutton, Kevin Bradley and Deng. The squad finished third in the event with a time of 9:41.20. John Simons paced Minnesota in the 3,000-meter run with a seventh-place finish at 7:55.93.
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Players Mentioned
