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TAMPA – The University of South Florida track and field teams hit the road for the first time since the BIG EAST Indoor Championships a little more than a month ago as the Bulls travel to Tallahassee, Fla., to compete in the FSU Relays Thursday-Sunday at the FSU Mike Long Track. This week marks the second-straight week the Bulls will be in competition the the second of five straight weeks all together.

The meet is scheduled to begin Thursday at 11:30 a.m. with the first day of the decathlon. The heptathlon will also commence Thursday, along with the men's and women's hammer and the women's javelin. For the complete schedule of events over the three days of competition, click here. For up-to-the-minute results, check here with halfmiletiming.com throughout the meet for live results.

The meet, which will also be run in conjunction with a high school invitational, will feature a packed field, including Wisconsin, Tennessee, Air Force, Troy, Jacksonville, North Florida and North Dakota State, among others. For the complete heat sheets, click here.

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.

Chasing Records, Again
The record book has already been shredded this season, and even more so after the last meet March 19 in the Bulls Invitational, when three more records fell after three hit the dust in the outdoor season's opening meet.

Sophomore Jared Thomas, for the second meet in a row, set a new standard in the discus, this time throwing 185-4 to top the 182-3 he posted March 5 in the USF Open. Fellow sophomore Nicole Rozario ran the 3,000 steeplechase in 10:28.89 to set the new all-time USF best there as well.

Staying Busy
The story of the day belonged to the men's 4x100 relay, which set the third record on the day in 40.79, just edging out the 40.83 the 2007 relay had posted. Along with seniors Armante Marshall and Greg Fontus, a pair of freshman in Kayvon Webster and Derrick Hopkins contributed to the record-breaking time, as the duo was allowed to miss football practice, which was going on from 4-6 p.m. last Friday just a few hundred yards away at the football practice fields.

Freshman football player Sterling Griffin ran in the 400 meters and the 4x400 relay, while fellow rookie Lindsey Lamar ran the 100 meters then went over to football practice and continued his day there. You can watch a post-practice video of Lamar here. With scrimmages and the spring game, those four will only compete in the Florida Relays April 2-3 before the BIG EAST Championships April 30-May 2 in Cincinnati.

Speed, Speed, and, Well, More Speed
The Bulls are looking at perhaps their best group of sprinters for the men's team in the nearly 20 years of track and field existence at USF. A total of 11 runners could conceivably earn All-BIG EAST honors in one event or another for the Bulls between the 100, 200, 400 and the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.

It all starts with the 4x100 relay, as USF could throw all four football players or mix in Marshall and Fontus in there and earn top-3 honors. For perspective, USF took second at last year's outdoor conference meet in 41.27 seconds. USF's 4x400 relay, meanwhile, already earned all-conference honors after finishing third at the indoor championships last month.

The foursome that ran the record-breaking 4x100 relay and Lamar have all qualified for the BIG EAST Championships in the 100 meters. Lamar already earned All-BIG EAST accolades in the 60 meters during the indoor season, where Hopkins took fourth and Marshall placed seventh.

Senior Josh Wimbley and Fontus went 5-6 in the finals of the 200 during the indoor championships, while sophomores David Aristil and Reshaw Exilien and freshman Pascal Orelus all are looking for top 3 placements in the 400. Exilien took third at the indoor meet, while Orelus and Aristil have already ran sub-47.75 times, which would have put them 5-6 in the finals at last year's outdoor conference meet with those times. Aristil, Orelus, Exilien and senior Mikail Ebanks took part in the indoor 400 relay that placed third, with Griffin also expected to bring some speed there as well.

They've all taken different paths to get to this point, from the threesome of Hopkins, Griffin and Webster who had the nation's top high school time in the 4x100 relay last year; to Marshall, who transferred from Stetson and competed for the USF soccer team; to Orelus, who didn't even arrive on campus until the spring semester; to Fontus, who was discovered by a future teammate who happened to see him running on the track on his own four years ago and alerted the coaching staff.

Shade Making the Most of Final Season
Senior Samantha Shade is performing at a level she never has before at USF, becoming the fourth woman ever to surpass 40 feet in the triple jump last week. She leapt 40-1.5 to move into third all time behind Charlissa Anderson (40-9.5) and the somewhat unreachable Kerine Black, who's 44-3.5 has yet to be threatened in 12 years of existence.

Shade also went 19-1.5 in the long jump at the Bulls Invitational last Friday, which moved her up to fourth all-time. In both events, Shade surpassed her previous best by more than eight inches. It marked the second time in the two outdoor meets this year Shade bumped up her all-time PR in the long jump.

Prendergast Tops Best Facility Time
Sophomore Allie Prendergast broke the school record at the USF Open March 5 in the 3,000 meters, running a time of 9:41.51 to top Aimee Lund's 9:41.80 set in 1994. Just as impressive, though, was the fact Prendergast also broke the USF Track & Field Stadium record in the event, out-running the previous top mark of 9:44.25 set by Tulane's Hanne Lyngstad in 1998. Prendergast broke Lyngstad's stranglehold in the running events, although Lyngstad still owns the 1,500 and 5,000 meter records for the facility that were all set in '98.

In addition, the stadium records for the women's 400-meter hurdles and the men's discus were bested last Friday in the Bulls Invitational, while the women's high jump mark was equaled. For all of the stadium records, click here.

Freshmen on Fire
USF has a whole host of freshman tearing it up on the track, but two have stood out the most in freshman sprinter/jumper Monique Williams and sprinter Pascal Orelus, both of whom didn't arrive on campus until the spring semester.

Williams is one of USF's best all-around athletes, as she scored points for the Bulls at the Indoor BIG EAST Championships in the long jump (eighth) and triple jump (fifth), and nearly qualified for the 60 meters in the one and only time she ran the event prior to the conference meet.

Despite being hampered by a nagging leg injury, Williams did post a 100-meter qualifying mark at the Bulls Invitational along with the triple jump, joining freshman Neamen Wise as the only two athletes to qualify for the conference championships in both a field and running event. Wise did so in the 60 meters, 60 hurdles, and the long jump during the indoor season.

Orelus is already one of USF's best sprinters, which is certainly saying a lot with the depth the team has. In his second collegiate outdoor meet ever, Orelus went out and ran the second-fastest time ever at USF in the 400 meters in 47.63, as he looks to challenge school record holder Carlton Mitchell's 47.28 time from 2007. Orelus also ran a BIG EAST time in the 200 at the Bulls Invitational as well, which put him at seventh all-time at USF.

All of this comes on the heels of a successful indoor season, when Orelus helped the 4x400 relay finish third at the indoor championships and the DMR place sixth along with running the 400 meters. Without getting a chance to train with the coaches in the fall, the duo certainly have risen quickly.

Updated BIG EAST Qualifying Marks
USF added several more qualifying marks following its second home meet of the year last Friday in the Bulls Invitational, as the numbers now stand at 20 for the men and 23 for the women, in terms of the total number of BIG EAST marks.

For the men, it all starts with the 100 meters, where the Bulls boast five qualifiers. USF also has three each in the 200 meters and in the pole vault. In running events, senior Greg Fontus, sophomore David Aristil and freshman Pascal Orelus have each qualified in two, while senior Tyler Perkins has done the same in the discus and javelin. For the list of qualifiers, click here.

On the women's side, USF has qualified three in the discus and triple jump, with sophomore Atasha Warren leading the way with a trio of performances in the discus, hammer and shot put. Senior Samantha Shade, sophomores Yasmin Smith, Lauren Noe and Sarah Canter and freshman Monique Williams have all qualified for two. For the list of women's qualifiers, click here.

Last Time Out For the Bulls
USF saw three more school records fall at the Bulls Invitational last Friday (March 19), as sophomores Jared Thomas and Nicole Rozario took down the top marks in the discus and 3,000-meter steeplechase, respectively, while the 4x100 relay of Armante Marshall, Derrick Hopkins, Kayvon Webster and Greg Fontus set a new standard there.

Hopkins, Fontus, Webster and freshman Lindsey Lamar all posted BIG EAST marks in the 100 meters, as did senior Josh Wimbley, freshman Pascal Orelus and Fontus in the 200. Orelus also had the second-best time at the meet in the 400 to 2008 100-meter Olympic bronze medalist Walter Dix.

Senior Samantha Shade also placed first in the long jump, as did junior Antillio Bastian in the triple jump. Sophomores Lauren Noe and David Aristil also took home the top spot in the hammer and 400-meter hurdles, respectively, along with the men's 4x400 relay.

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 come back home following the FSU Relays but then head right back up I-75 as the Bulls travel to Gainesville to compete in the Florida Relays April 2-3.