Meet Schedule | Directions to the Stadium | Heat Sheets | USF's All-Time Records | Interactive Guide | Media Center
TAMPA – The University of South Florida track and field teams get back to work in the teams' second-straight home meet as the Bulls welcome more than a dozen squads for the Bulls Invitational out at the USF Track & Field Stadium Friday afternoon.
Admission is free to the public, and the stadium affords fans the opportunity to walk all the way around the track and catch different events up close. For directions to get to the stadium, click here.
The meet is scheduled to begin at noon with the women's hammer throw at the cage on the corner of 50th and Holly streets and the men's javelin at the actual track and field stadium. The women's 3,000-meter steeplechase will begin at 3 p.m. and will kick off the running events, which will be on a rolling schedule from there on out. For the complete schedule of events, click here.
Teams scheduled to compete include Army, Bethune-Cookman, Eastern Michigan, Embry-Riddle, Florida State, Marquette, Michigan, North Florida, Rutgers, St. John's, Tampa and Wayne State, with some schools bringing either the men's or women's teams and some bringing both. For the complete heat sheets, click here.
Florida State comes in ranked ninth on the men's side and 11th in the most recent women's NCAA D-I indoor rankings prior to last weekend's NCAA Indoor Championships. (Pre-season outdoor rankings won't be released until next week.)
Check back at GoUSFBulls.com for the complete recap and meet results when they become available each day. As always, results will be posted first on the Media Center page, along with results from every meet throughout the year.
Honoring the Seniors
USF Athletics will honor the 2010 seniors at approximately 4:30 p.m. during the meet in between running events, as head coach Warren Bye will present each athlete with a picture frame of them in action. USF Athletics and the track and field program would like to thank each of USF's athletes for their hard work and dedication to the program throughout their time at USF.
Chasing Records
It didn't take long for records to fall in the first outdoor meet of the year March 5 when the Bulls hosted the USF Open, as three sophomores went out and created new all-time marks, two of whom had already done it as freshmen last season.
On the men's side, Jared Thomas bested his school record from last year in the discus with a throw of 182-3, slightly more than a foot farther than the 181-2 he posted as a freshman. 
The women's team saw two records fall, with Casey Wagner surpassing her school record in the javelin two weeks ago after covering a distance of 154-6, outpacing her mark of 152-8 set as a freshman in 2009 at the BIG EAST Championships. In addition, sophomore Allie Prendergast continued to run well in the 3,000 meters, knocking off more than 30 seconds from her best time in the 2009 outdoor season with a time of 9:41.51, moving past Aimee Lund, who had held the school record since 1994 when she clocked 9:41.80.
More Movers and Shakers
Besides those school records, a few other athletes came out added their names to the all-time top 10 lists.
The men added numerous named to the list or saw athletes improve from their previous standing, including sophomore David Aristil and freshman Pascal Orelus in the 400. Aristil etched his name into second-place with a 47.72 behind all-time leader Carlton Mitchell's 47.28, while Orelus landed at fifth with a 48.24. Another sprinter, senior Armante Marshall, found himself eighth after the meet in the 100 meters.
The 4x100 relay nearly came up with the school record, as senior Greg Fontus and freshman Lindsey Lamar, Kayvon Webster and Derrick Hopkins ran 40.89, just off the 2007's relay squad's 40.83 that stands as the best ever at USF. In other running events, sophomore Phillip Wise earned his way into fifth in the 3,000 at 8:39.90, while senior Ryan Courtoy landed 10th in the 800.
In addition for the men, junior Kevin Kelly posted the fourth-best javelin throw at 190-7 as he chases the all-time mark of 204-7, while junior Antillio Bastian now ranks seventh in the long jump. Freshman Mike Vani and Wyatt Metzger sit in a tie for ninth in the pole vault.
For the women, sophomore Nicole Rozario continues to chase the all-time 3,000-meter steeplechase record, where she now owns the second-best mark at 10:44.02, just behind Rita Arndt's time of 10:38.41 for the top spot.
A pair of throwers also climbed the charts, with sophomore Sarah Canter easily surpassing her previous best in the javelin at 143-1 to now rank third all-time, while sophomore Atasha Warren moved into sixth in the hammer. Both also landed in the discus top 10, with Warren and Canter ranking eighth and ninth, respectively, following their showing. Senior Samantha Shade also landed at 10th in the long jump.
Busy Bodies
It isn't easy competing in two sports, but the track and field program has had athletes in the past pull it off. Most recently, sprinter Armante Marshall has been a member of the men's soccer team at USF after transferring from Stetson in addition to his sprinting duties. Former football player and soon-to-be NFL Draft pick Carlton Mitchell still owns USF's all-time record in the 400 meters set in his freshman season, while former All-American high jumper Jimmy Baxter also competed with the USF basketball team back in the early 2000s.
This year, four freshman football players have signed on to compete in track: Sterling Griffin, Kayvon Webster, Derrick Hopkins and Lindsey Lamar. Hopkins and Lamar ran indoors, while all four will compete outdoors. But with spring football practice now in full bloom, the foursome will only get a limited amount of time to run before the BIG EAST Championships April 30-May 2, two weeks after spring football ends with the Spring Game.
Despite having practice on Friday from 4-6 at the football practice fields, the foursome was granted permission by head coach Skip Holtz to run in Friday's meet, giving them the opportunity to post a qualifying mark in either the 100, 200 and 400, depending on their specialties, so they can punch their tickets to Cincinnati for the championships. USF has four other meet dates prior to BIG EAST, but the football team has two scrimmages and the spring game during three of those meets, with the foursome free to compete just in the Florida Relays April 2-3. Aside from Griffin, the other three ran the 4x100 in the first outdoor meet, just missing the school record, but were held out of the other individual sprints.
BIG EAST Qualifying Marks Begin to Pile Up
Despite several top performers sitting out of the March 5 meet, USF continued to pile up the BIG EAST qualifying marks, with the women posting 15 different qualifying mark followed by 10 for the men.
Some of the highlights included seven different marks by four sophomore throwers on the women's side in Atasha Warren, Lauren Noe, Sarah Canter and Casey Wagner in the discus, javelin and hammer. Senior Samantha Shade was the only USF athlete to qualify in two events as she did so in both the long and triple jumps.
A total of five pole vaulters and five discus throwers punched their tickets to the conference championships between both sides, with senior Tyler Perkins and sophomore Jared Thomas joining Noe, Warren and Canter in the discus. Juniors Stephanie Duffy and Dana Webb out-performed the BIG EAST mark in the pole vault as did their male counterparts in senior Sean Young and freshman Mike Vani and Wyatt Metzger.
USF looks to add even more this week as several athletes will complete for the first time during the outdoor season. For the complete list of everyone who has qualified so far, see the table to the right.
Reaching for 7-Foot Heaven
The Hernando Today profiled high jumper Michael Kursteiner, a local product from Brooksville, Fla., who hails from Nature Coast High School, where he captured the school's only individual state title ever in track and field as a senior.
Click here to read the article about Kursteiner and how he continues to strive for that 7-foot mark in the high jump in this his last season with the Bulls.
Last Time Out For the Bulls
USF began the outdoor season by hosting the USF Open March 5 on what was a beautiful sunny day but quickly turned into a cold evening by sundown.
Despite several top athletes refraining from competition, USF had a solid all-around meet, highlighted by numerous all-time top-10 additions, a trio of school records and even more personal bests (see above).
Along with the above mentioned top-10 performances and school records, sophomores Shaniels Chambers and Yasmin Smith had solid meets in the 800 and 1,500 meters, respectively, as the pair ran times of 2:12.15 and 4:34.83, just off their personal bests.
Freshman Monique Williams, held out of the long and triple jumps in which she excels, instead nearly posted a BIG EAST qualifying time in the 100 meters in 12.31 to place second in a crowded 100-meter field. Several other athletes got off to solid starts with juniors MaShonda Rayner and Rachel Etienne in the triple and long jumps, respectively, along with all five of USF's BIG EAST qualifying pole vaulters.
Head to the Media Center page to find the links to the full recap and the results in PDF format from all of the indoor meets, as well as the recap and results from every meet during the rest of the season as they happen. Don't forget to keep tabs on the team's progress throughout the year with the Track & Field Records and History Index page, which includes everyone's personal bests - indoor and outdoor - as well as a running tab of the best times and marks for the season and a complete performance list.
USF Unveils 2009-10 Online Interactive Guide
The USF athletics department will no longer print media guides and has now switched over to a new online, interactive format, which features vivid photography, videos of both the coaches and athletes, as well as everything else one would need in order to stay informed about the USF track and field program. Click here to head to the press release and then click on the image inside the story to open up the 2009-10 Track & Field Interactive Guide. Learn more about the athletes, watch them perform on the track, listen to what the coaches have to say about the program, and much, much more.
Up Next
The teams will hit the road for the first time in more than a month as the Bulls head to the FSU Relays March 25-27 in Tallahassee.
