Tickets// ON THE STARTING LINE
The final week of the regular season is upon the University of Cincinnati track and field program as the Bearcats will travel to Lexington, Ky., Saturday to take part in the Kentucky Relays at the UK Outdoor Track & Field Complex. The one-day meet will serve as the final tune-up for the Bearcats before they play host to the 2018 American Athletic Conference Championships May 11-13.
// FINAL WARM UP
The meet at Kentucky will be the final warm up for the Bearcats as they are set to play host to the 2018 American Athletic Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships next weekend (May 11-13). The three-day meet will be contested at Gettler Stadium on campus with the hammer and javelin portions of the meet being held at Coy Field. Tickets are $10 for adults/$6 for youth & seniors for a three-day (all-session) pass or $5/$3 for single day tickets. For more information on the meet, including a complete schedule of events, visit the AAC Championship page at TheAmerican.org (bit.ly/CinAACotf18).
// ALUMNI CORNER
• During the AAC meet, Bearcats alumni will have several opportunities to gather and reconnect. There will be an alumni tailgate each day during the meet and an alumni social Saturday night after the final event of the day has been contested. For more information and to RSVP, visit: http://bit.ly/CinAACalums18
• David Payne, the 2008 Olympic Silver Medalist in the 110m hurdles, was inducted into the Greater Cincinnati Running Hall of Fame last weekend. Payne was a multiple-time conference champion for the Bearcats and held the UC record in the 110m hurdles (13.42) for nine years.
• Former All-American Eric Finan raced in the Eugene (Ore.) Half Marathon over the weekend and won the event for the second year in a row.
// IN THE MEET - KENTUCKY
Around 23 teams are slated to compete Saturday with the Bearcats facing competitors from the host Wildcats along with Eastern Kentucky, Lipscomb, Louisville, Western Michigan and Xavier to name a few.
// FOLLOW ALONG
Live results for the Kentucky Relays meet will be made available at UKAthletics.com.
// BEING SOCIAL
GoBearcats.com is your one-stop destination for all things UC Athletics. Socially, the team can also be followed on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with all using the handle GoBearcatsTFXC. As always, fans are encouraged to join in the conversation using the hashtag #Bearcats.
// QUICK STARTS
• Aaron Bienenfeld ran his first collegiate 10k at the Penn Relays and turned in an impressive time, lowering his PR by over 28 seconds and moving up to #3 in UC history
• Hannah Markel continues to add her name to UC Top 10 lists, this time joining the 1,500m ledger after another impressive run in Louisville
• Sam Meece smashed his own UC freshman record in the discus in Louisville, raising the standard by 5'7" while also moving up to #6 all-time
• Irati Mitxelena swept both horizontal jumps she entered, winning the long jump with a PR and the #8 mark in program history before taking gold in the triple jump the next day
// SCHNELLE KATZE
Aaron Bienenfeld is proving to be one fast cat! In his short time with the program, the mid-year transfer from Germany has done some rewrites of his own in the UC all-time Top 10, most recently running 29:52.13 in the 10,000m run at the Penn Relays for the #3 time in UC history. That impressive run, which makes him only the fourth UC man to run under 30 minutes in the event, came six days after he ran 14:12.84 in the 5,000m run at the Auburn War Eagle Invitational, the #2 time in UC history. After joining the team in January, Bienenfeld raced six times indoors, running UC all-time Top 10 times in five of those races, including the #9 mile, the #7 then #3 3,000m times and the #3 and school record times in the 5,000m with the record and the #3 time in the 3,000m coming on back-to-back days at the AAC Championships.
// MARKEL MARKS
Staying in the distance races, Hannah Markel has continued to impress as well as she ran 4:39.87 last week in the 1,500m run at Louisville's Lyles/Wood Invitational to post the #8 time in program history. Similar to Bienenfeld, she added a time to the Top 10 list in a short span of time as she ran 17:23.15 in the 5,000m run at the War Eagle Invitational just eight days prior to post the #7 time in UC history.
// THE GILMOUR GIRLS
With Markel making the Top 10 list in the metric mile, she has now joined her former Gilmour Academy teammate Alexis Anton in the Top 10 in both 'miles' this year. The Gilmour Girls are very close to one another on the Top 10 charts now with Anton leading the duo at 4:38.06 for #7 all-time and Markel sitting at #8, just 1.81 seconds behind. Their times came just eight days apart as Anton recorded her mark at the War Eagle Invitational at Auburn last week. Earlier this year, both women added their names to the indoor mile with Anton taking the #3 position (5:02.23) and Markel #4 (5:02.29), leaving a separation of just 0.06 seconds between the two on the list.
// NOT MEECE-ING THE MARK
Heading into the season, the school's freshman record in the men's discus was 50.46m (165-07) that was set by Scott Ference in the 1991 season. Move ahead 27 years and the record was finally taken down by Sam Meece, who threw 51.74m (169-09) to better the mark by 4'2". This past weekend, Meece upped the mark once again, this time throwing 53.45m (175-04) to better his own PR by 5'7" and better what Ference had thrown by nearly 10' (9'9"). Meece moved up to #6 in program history with the toss and is currently ranked third in the AAC.
// MITXELENA GRABS TWO WINS
Along with the solid marks attained, the Bearcats also won four events on the weekend, including Irati Mitxelena sweeping the horizontal jumps. The sophomore from Spain opened the weekend by capturing the open section of the long jump with a best of 5.94m (19-06.00), the #8 mark in UC history, before coming back the next day to win the triple jump with a best of 12.46m (40-10.50).
// MORE WINS IN LOUISVILLE
Also victorious on the weekend were Tiona Lattimore and Allie Plybon. Lattimore ran a time of 23.71 to defeat 43 other women in the 200m dash while Plybon captured the open section of the pole vault. Plybon won with a personal-best clearance of 3.72m (12-02.50), which moved her into seventh on the current AAC descending order lists.
// TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADERS
Heading into the final week of the regular season and just one week away from the conference meet, two UC women continue to hold the top marks in their respective events in the AAC. Loretta Blaut remains the high jump leader at 1.82m while Brooke Catherine leads the pole vault at 4.20m. The women have four other marks that have them ranked second, including Tiona Lattimore in the 400m, Kellsa Mbah in the long jump, Irati Mitxelena in the triple jump and Angelica Lightfoot in the heptathlon. On the men's side, Aaron Bienenfeld is the top-ranked Bearcat as he is second in the 5,000m run while Alex Bloom (high jump) and Sam Meece (discus) are third.
// IF IT ENDED TODAY
With the conference meet taking place next weekend, the Bearcats are now three weeks away from the first round of the NCAA Championships. To qualify for that meet, an athlete has to be ranked in the Top 48 of an individual event in their respective region while relays are Top 24 (heptathlon and decathlon are Top 16 nationally; no regional competition). If the selections were made today, seven women and five men would have punched their tickets to the NCAA East Preliminary Round meet in Tampa. The women's list includes Loretta Blaut (#4, high jump), Brooke Catherine (#9, pole vault), Irati Mitxelena (#26, triple jump), Ashley Williams (#32, shot put), Leah Heckaman (#42, shot put), Alexis Gray (#45, discus) and Tiona Lattimore (#46, 200m & #48, 400m). On the men's side, the list includes Austin Edwards (#26, long jump), Adrian Valles (#31, pole vault), Sam Meece (#34, discus), #40 Marcus Abraham (#40, shot put) and Alex Bloom (#46, high jump). All marks attained this weekend at Kentucky and next week at the conference meet will be countable toward making the Top 24/48.
PREVIOUSLY NOTED
// UC HOSTING AAC OUTDOORS IN 2018
This season, the 2018 American Athletic Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships will be hosted by the Bearcats at Gettler Stadium and Coy Field. The three-day meet will take place May 11-13 on the UC campus and will mark the first AAC track & field meet the Bearcats have played host and the second AAC meet UC has hosted after holding the 2016 AAC Cross Country Championships at Voice of America MetroPark in West Chester. The last time the Bearcats played host to a conference meet came in 2010 when the BIG EAST meet was held at Gettler Stadium.
// BEARCATS GRADUATE
On April 28, 18 members of the track & field and cross country program earned their degrees from the. The list of graduates boasted 11 women, including Alexis Anton, Aliya Barnes, Loretta Blaut, Madison Dunlap, Annette Echikunwoke, Deanna Gesicki, Alexis Gray, Kellsa Mbah, Juliana Puopolo, Tessa Ward and Meg Westerheide, and seven men, including Jimmy Brooks, Spencer Clark, Seamus Collins, Ryan Greene, Jaashir Morris, Ben Wollenslegel and Mike Wood. Of all the graduates, Ward graduated from UC for the second time in as many years as she earned her Masters of Business degree.
// ONE TEAM HONORS
The office of Student-Athlete Support Services (SASS) handed out several ONE Team honors this week at the mid-week baseball game between the Bearcats and visiting rival Xavier (UC won, 10-7), with two men earning awards. Alex Bloom was named the recipient of the Jimmy Nippert Award as the 'male student-athlete who has demonstrated academic achievement and outstanding contributions in their sport and community'. Also earning recognition was Adrian Valles, the male recipient of the Nancy Hamant Scholar-Athlete of the Year (Vanessa Gilles of women's soccer was the female recipient). The Hamant honor goes to 'one graduating male and one female student-athlete who has excelled in the classroom and has the highest cumulative GPA among all graduating student-athletes'.
// UP NEXT
Next week, the Bearcats will play host to the 2018 American Athletic Conference Championships at Gettler Stadium and Coy Field. The meet will run Friday, May 11, through Sunday, May 13. Action gets underway Friday at 11 a.m. with the men's hammer throw and running events starting at 6 p.m. Saturday, action starts at 10:30 a.m. with the decathlon 110m hurdles while all other running events start at 5 p.m. The final day of competition gets underway Sunday at 10 a.m. with the javelin and running starts at 4:30 p.m. with the 4x100m relays.
The final week of the regular season is upon the University of Cincinnati track and field program as the Bearcats will travel to Lexington, Ky., Saturday to take part in the Kentucky Relays at the UK Outdoor Track & Field Complex. The one-day meet will serve as the final tune-up for the Bearcats before they play host to the 2018 American Athletic Conference Championships May 11-13.
// FINAL WARM UP
The meet at Kentucky will be the final warm up for the Bearcats as they are set to play host to the 2018 American Athletic Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships next weekend (May 11-13). The three-day meet will be contested at Gettler Stadium on campus with the hammer and javelin portions of the meet being held at Coy Field. Tickets are $10 for adults/$6 for youth & seniors for a three-day (all-session) pass or $5/$3 for single day tickets. For more information on the meet, including a complete schedule of events, visit the AAC Championship page at TheAmerican.org (bit.ly/CinAACotf18).
// ALUMNI CORNER
• During the AAC meet, Bearcats alumni will have several opportunities to gather and reconnect. There will be an alumni tailgate each day during the meet and an alumni social Saturday night after the final event of the day has been contested. For more information and to RSVP, visit: http://bit.ly/CinAACalums18
• David Payne, the 2008 Olympic Silver Medalist in the 110m hurdles, was inducted into the Greater Cincinnati Running Hall of Fame last weekend. Payne was a multiple-time conference champion for the Bearcats and held the UC record in the 110m hurdles (13.42) for nine years.
• Former All-American Eric Finan raced in the Eugene (Ore.) Half Marathon over the weekend and won the event for the second year in a row.
// IN THE MEET - KENTUCKY
Around 23 teams are slated to compete Saturday with the Bearcats facing competitors from the host Wildcats along with Eastern Kentucky, Lipscomb, Louisville, Western Michigan and Xavier to name a few.
// FOLLOW ALONG
Live results for the Kentucky Relays meet will be made available at UKAthletics.com.
// BEING SOCIAL
GoBearcats.com is your one-stop destination for all things UC Athletics. Socially, the team can also be followed on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with all using the handle GoBearcatsTFXC. As always, fans are encouraged to join in the conversation using the hashtag #Bearcats.
// QUICK STARTS
• Aaron Bienenfeld ran his first collegiate 10k at the Penn Relays and turned in an impressive time, lowering his PR by over 28 seconds and moving up to #3 in UC history
• Hannah Markel continues to add her name to UC Top 10 lists, this time joining the 1,500m ledger after another impressive run in Louisville
• Sam Meece smashed his own UC freshman record in the discus in Louisville, raising the standard by 5'7" while also moving up to #6 all-time
• Irati Mitxelena swept both horizontal jumps she entered, winning the long jump with a PR and the #8 mark in program history before taking gold in the triple jump the next day
// SCHNELLE KATZE
Aaron Bienenfeld is proving to be one fast cat! In his short time with the program, the mid-year transfer from Germany has done some rewrites of his own in the UC all-time Top 10, most recently running 29:52.13 in the 10,000m run at the Penn Relays for the #3 time in UC history. That impressive run, which makes him only the fourth UC man to run under 30 minutes in the event, came six days after he ran 14:12.84 in the 5,000m run at the Auburn War Eagle Invitational, the #2 time in UC history. After joining the team in January, Bienenfeld raced six times indoors, running UC all-time Top 10 times in five of those races, including the #9 mile, the #7 then #3 3,000m times and the #3 and school record times in the 5,000m with the record and the #3 time in the 3,000m coming on back-to-back days at the AAC Championships.
// MARKEL MARKS
Staying in the distance races, Hannah Markel has continued to impress as well as she ran 4:39.87 last week in the 1,500m run at Louisville's Lyles/Wood Invitational to post the #8 time in program history. Similar to Bienenfeld, she added a time to the Top 10 list in a short span of time as she ran 17:23.15 in the 5,000m run at the War Eagle Invitational just eight days prior to post the #7 time in UC history.
// THE GILMOUR GIRLS
With Markel making the Top 10 list in the metric mile, she has now joined her former Gilmour Academy teammate Alexis Anton in the Top 10 in both 'miles' this year. The Gilmour Girls are very close to one another on the Top 10 charts now with Anton leading the duo at 4:38.06 for #7 all-time and Markel sitting at #8, just 1.81 seconds behind. Their times came just eight days apart as Anton recorded her mark at the War Eagle Invitational at Auburn last week. Earlier this year, both women added their names to the indoor mile with Anton taking the #3 position (5:02.23) and Markel #4 (5:02.29), leaving a separation of just 0.06 seconds between the two on the list.
// NOT MEECE-ING THE MARK
Heading into the season, the school's freshman record in the men's discus was 50.46m (165-07) that was set by Scott Ference in the 1991 season. Move ahead 27 years and the record was finally taken down by Sam Meece, who threw 51.74m (169-09) to better the mark by 4'2". This past weekend, Meece upped the mark once again, this time throwing 53.45m (175-04) to better his own PR by 5'7" and better what Ference had thrown by nearly 10' (9'9"). Meece moved up to #6 in program history with the toss and is currently ranked third in the AAC.
// MITXELENA GRABS TWO WINS
Along with the solid marks attained, the Bearcats also won four events on the weekend, including Irati Mitxelena sweeping the horizontal jumps. The sophomore from Spain opened the weekend by capturing the open section of the long jump with a best of 5.94m (19-06.00), the #8 mark in UC history, before coming back the next day to win the triple jump with a best of 12.46m (40-10.50).
// MORE WINS IN LOUISVILLE
Also victorious on the weekend were Tiona Lattimore and Allie Plybon. Lattimore ran a time of 23.71 to defeat 43 other women in the 200m dash while Plybon captured the open section of the pole vault. Plybon won with a personal-best clearance of 3.72m (12-02.50), which moved her into seventh on the current AAC descending order lists.
// TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADERS
Heading into the final week of the regular season and just one week away from the conference meet, two UC women continue to hold the top marks in their respective events in the AAC. Loretta Blaut remains the high jump leader at 1.82m while Brooke Catherine leads the pole vault at 4.20m. The women have four other marks that have them ranked second, including Tiona Lattimore in the 400m, Kellsa Mbah in the long jump, Irati Mitxelena in the triple jump and Angelica Lightfoot in the heptathlon. On the men's side, Aaron Bienenfeld is the top-ranked Bearcat as he is second in the 5,000m run while Alex Bloom (high jump) and Sam Meece (discus) are third.
// IF IT ENDED TODAY
With the conference meet taking place next weekend, the Bearcats are now three weeks away from the first round of the NCAA Championships. To qualify for that meet, an athlete has to be ranked in the Top 48 of an individual event in their respective region while relays are Top 24 (heptathlon and decathlon are Top 16 nationally; no regional competition). If the selections were made today, seven women and five men would have punched their tickets to the NCAA East Preliminary Round meet in Tampa. The women's list includes Loretta Blaut (#4, high jump), Brooke Catherine (#9, pole vault), Irati Mitxelena (#26, triple jump), Ashley Williams (#32, shot put), Leah Heckaman (#42, shot put), Alexis Gray (#45, discus) and Tiona Lattimore (#46, 200m & #48, 400m). On the men's side, the list includes Austin Edwards (#26, long jump), Adrian Valles (#31, pole vault), Sam Meece (#34, discus), #40 Marcus Abraham (#40, shot put) and Alex Bloom (#46, high jump). All marks attained this weekend at Kentucky and next week at the conference meet will be countable toward making the Top 24/48.
PREVIOUSLY NOTED
// UC HOSTING AAC OUTDOORS IN 2018
This season, the 2018 American Athletic Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships will be hosted by the Bearcats at Gettler Stadium and Coy Field. The three-day meet will take place May 11-13 on the UC campus and will mark the first AAC track & field meet the Bearcats have played host and the second AAC meet UC has hosted after holding the 2016 AAC Cross Country Championships at Voice of America MetroPark in West Chester. The last time the Bearcats played host to a conference meet came in 2010 when the BIG EAST meet was held at Gettler Stadium.
// BEARCATS GRADUATE
On April 28, 18 members of the track & field and cross country program earned their degrees from the. The list of graduates boasted 11 women, including Alexis Anton, Aliya Barnes, Loretta Blaut, Madison Dunlap, Annette Echikunwoke, Deanna Gesicki, Alexis Gray, Kellsa Mbah, Juliana Puopolo, Tessa Ward and Meg Westerheide, and seven men, including Jimmy Brooks, Spencer Clark, Seamus Collins, Ryan Greene, Jaashir Morris, Ben Wollenslegel and Mike Wood. Of all the graduates, Ward graduated from UC for the second time in as many years as she earned her Masters of Business degree.
// ONE TEAM HONORS
The office of Student-Athlete Support Services (SASS) handed out several ONE Team honors this week at the mid-week baseball game between the Bearcats and visiting rival Xavier (UC won, 10-7), with two men earning awards. Alex Bloom was named the recipient of the Jimmy Nippert Award as the 'male student-athlete who has demonstrated academic achievement and outstanding contributions in their sport and community'. Also earning recognition was Adrian Valles, the male recipient of the Nancy Hamant Scholar-Athlete of the Year (Vanessa Gilles of women's soccer was the female recipient). The Hamant honor goes to 'one graduating male and one female student-athlete who has excelled in the classroom and has the highest cumulative GPA among all graduating student-athletes'.
// UP NEXT
Next week, the Bearcats will play host to the 2018 American Athletic Conference Championships at Gettler Stadium and Coy Field. The meet will run Friday, May 11, through Sunday, May 13. Action gets underway Friday at 11 a.m. with the men's hammer throw and running events starting at 6 p.m. Saturday, action starts at 10:30 a.m. with the decathlon 110m hurdles while all other running events start at 5 p.m. The final day of competition gets underway Sunday at 10 a.m. with the javelin and running starts at 4:30 p.m. with the 4x100m relays.