UC Trio Headed to NCAA indoor Championships

// ON THE STARTING LINE
The final indoor meet of the 2020 season is upon the University of Cincinnati track & field program as three members of the team are set to compete in the 2020 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships in Albuquerque, N.M., Friday and Saturday inside the Albuquerque Convention Center. The Bearcats have qualified three individuals to the competition, including Damien Berthenet (heptathlon) and Chris Borzor (200m) for the men and Caisja Chandler (200m) for the women.

// STILL ON
As of Thursday at 1:30 p.m. (March 12), the 2020 NCAA meet is still on as scheduled. The NCAA (via NCAA.com) will provide further updates should anything change because of continued caution in association to COVID-19 (coronavirus). Fans will not be permitted in the venue.

// MEET INFORMATION
• The NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships will run Friday and Saturday at the Convention Center in downtown Albuquerque, N.M.
• Live results will be available at FlashResults.com
• ESPN3 will stream portions of the competition each day starting at 7:15 p.m. ET Friday and 6 p.m. ET Saturday. The meet will be re-aired Monday, March 16, on ESPNU at 9 p.m. ET

// OUT OF THE BLOCKS
• Cincinnati has qualified three individuals to the national indoor meet, including two men (Berthenet and Borzor) and one woman (Chandler)
• The three qualifiers is the most since UC had four in 2018 (2 men and 2 women)
• Chandler's selection gives UC's women at least one qualifier to the NCAA Indoor Championships in each of the last six years (2016 to present)
• The two selections for the men are their most since 2018 when Alex Bloom (heptathlon) and Adrian Valles (pole vault) competed
• The Bearcats had a successful AAC Championship meet with the women taking second as a team and them winning four individual event titles to place third
• The women earned a trophy (Top 2) finish for the fifth year in a row (1 title, 4 runners-up)
• The men enjoyed their best finish ever in the AAC and scored their most points (101) in the meet
• Individual champions for the men included Berthenet (heptathlon), Borzor (200m), Aaron Bienenfeld (3,000m) and Arthur Greenlee IV (60mH)

// QUICK SPLITS: BERTHENET
• Berthenet, a senior from Lyon, France, qualified in the heptathlon with 5,693 points, the #10 score of the year in the NCAA
• He is set to compete in his first NCAA event after breaking the school record previously held by volunteer coach Alex Bloom, a 2018 USTFCCCA All-America Second Team honoree in the heptathlon for Cincinnati, the program's first indoor All-American in the event
• Berthenet scored his qualifying mark at the AAC Championships (Feb. 28-29) in Birmingham, Ala., where he won his first conference title as well
• On the way to his record performance and qualification, he broke the school's heptathlon records in the shot put (14.29m) and the 60m hurdles (8.31)
• For his efforts, he was named the recipient of the AAC Men's Field Most Outstanding Performance Award, given to the individuals that record the highest ranking marks on the NCAA lists at the AAC Championship meet

// QUICK SPLITS: BORZOR
• A sophomore from Uniondale, N.Y., Borzor qualified to the NCAA Championships in the 200m after running 20.84 to rank 13th nationally this year
• Borzor, who ran his time to win the AAC title, is the first man in UC history to run under 21 seconds in the indoor event and did so twice this year, first running 20.92 at the Charlie Thomas Invitational at Texas A&M in early February
• He also was second in the 400m at the AAC meet, running a PR 47.43 to take second in the meet
• For his efforts, he was selected as the 2020 AAC Men's Most Valuable Performer of the Meet as he scored 18.5 points to help UC to third place as team, the team's best finish in the AAC ever
• Borzor will be the first UC man to run in the event at the indoor national meet and the second ever behind Kenny Wade, who raced the 200m outdoors in 2004
• He also will be the first UC sprinter to race at the NCAA Indoor Championships cine 1978 when Jim Schnur competed in the 440y dash

// QUICK SPLITS: CHANDLER
• A sophomore from Cleveland, Ohio, Chandler also is making her NCAA debut as she too qualified for the 200m dash after running 23.22, the 13th-best time in the nation this year
• The conference runner-up at both 60m and 200m this year, Chandler has run a best of 7.30 in the shortest sprint to give her the school record in both sprints this season
• Her qualification to the national meet is just the second for a runner in women's program history after Kathy Klump placed fourth in the 800m run at the 2012 meet
• Earlier this year, she ran 7.30 in the 60m to break the school record previously held by Natasha Burse since 2011 when she ran 7.40
• The 200m record was previously 23.76 before Chandler broke it twice this year by running 23.52 at the Indiana Relays and then 23.22 at the AAC meet

// CHAMPIONS
At the American Championships, four UC men captured individual conference titles to help the men to their best finish in the AAC era (third). On the track, victorious Bearcats included Arthur Greenlee IV in the 60m hurdles; Chris Borzor in the 200m dash; Aaron Bienenfeld in the 3,000m run; and Damien Berthenet in the heptathlon.

// GOLD MINE
The four titles won by the men are the most in a single indoor conference meet in the AAC era and the fifth-best haul in program history. The previous best in the AAC came in 2016 when Sergio Acera (long jump), Josh Province (weight) and Adrian Valles (pole vault) each won. The record for a single indoor meet is eight in 1992 when UC collected crowns in 800m, 5,000m, 4x400m relay, shot put, weight, long jump, high jump and pole vault at the Great Midwest Conference Championships.

// ANOTHER CHRIS WINS
Borzor is the second UC man to win a conference title in the 200m dash. The first? Chris Watkins at the 1994 Great Midwest Conference Championship meet.

// THAT'S A FIRST, TIMES TWO
Both Greenlee IV and Berthenet earned the first conference titles in UC history in their respective events indoors. While Berthenet is the first heptathlon champion indoors, Greenlee IV is the first champion at 60m and the third hurdles champ overall as Ron Pittman (1992) and James Scott (1994) won the 55m hurdles at the Metro and Great Midwest meets, respectively.

// SECOND TIME
Bienenfeld's victory in the 3,000m run is the second in program history behind Jeremy Bucher, who won the same event at the 1997 Conference USA meet.

// ELITE COMPANY
Bienenfeld and Bucher, along with Mark Gerstner, for a trio of Bearcats that not only won an indoor conference title, but did so in the indoor season directly after winning the cross country title. Bienenfeld, who won the 2019 AAC Cross Country Championship in Memphis in November, is the third member of the group after Gerstner won the 1992 XC and 1993 indoor mile at the Great Midwest meet with Bucher following with the 1996 XC and 1997 3,000m run indoor titles at the Conference USA meets.

// TROPHY FINISHES
In the first two years of the American, the UC women placed seventh (2014) and fourth (2015) in the league indoor meet. Since then, however, the Bearcats have been a staple of the post-meet podium as UC has collected a trophy for a Top 2 finish in each of the last five meets. UC has finished as the runners-up in 2020, 2019, 2017 and 2016 while winning the 2018 title.

// MEN MOVING UP
The men, after placing seventh in the inaugural AAC indoor event, placed fourth two years in a row before placing fifth in back-to-back meets (2017 and 2018). Since then, UC has climbed higher in back-to-back years, placing fourth last year before scoring a program-best 101 points and placing third.

// RECORD ROUNDUP • WOMEN
Seven school records fell at the AAC Indoor Championships with the women posting three and the men four. On the women's side, Caisja Chandler bettered her 200m time, lowering it to 23.22 to qualify for the NCAA meet, while Hannah Markel took down 2008 record in the 3,000m with her time of 9:40.55. The final women's record to fall came in the DMR as the team of Sam Mikula, Carmen Licht, Sydney Kilgore and Ellie Leather combined to run 11:28.64, breaking the record of 11:36.35 that was run earlier this year by Maddie Walker, Licht, Kilgore and Leather at the Charlie Thomas Invitational.

// RECORD ROUNDUP • MEN
Two men combined to break four records with Damien Berthenet grabbing three top marks. Berthenet broke the school record in the heptathlon with 5,693 points, the total that also qualified him for the national meet. To get to that total, he broke two UC heptathlon event records, including the shot put (14.29m) and the 60m hurdles (8.31). Chris Borzor broke his own 200m dash record by running 20.84, a time that qualified him to the NCAA meet as well.

// MOVING UP THE LISTS
All told, 32 marks recorded at the conference meet found a place on the program's all-time Top 10 ledgers, including 19 by the men and 13 from the women.

PREVIOUSLY NOTED
// BIG MARKS FROM FRESHMEN
At the Jim Green Invitational, a pair of true freshmen recorded big marks for the women as Maddie Walker made her debut on the track in the 3,000m run and Hannah Jackson continued to throw well in the weight toss. Walker covered the 3,000m run on the 291m flat track in 9:55.27 to finish third in the race and add her name to the all-time Top 10 as she now ranks #4. In the weight, Jackson improved her best of 17.94m (58-10.25) to move up one spot to #5 on UC's Top 10.

// UP AND OVER
In the men's pole vault, Austin Goolsby provided some excitement as the sophomore cleared 5.05m (16-06.75) to finish second in the meet. That clearance is a lifetime best and placed him in a tie for the #9 position on the program's all-time Top 10. He also is now just the 12th man in program history to record an indoor clearance of 5.00m or better.

// BREAKING AN OLD RECORD
Chris Borzor opened his season in fine form as the sophomore sprinter raced in a pair of non-NCAA events and turned in some of the best times in the nation and in the history of the program. In the first meet of the year, the Jingle Bells Open at Kentucky, Borzor blazed a time of 1:03.10 in the 500m to post the #3 time in program history and the fastest time in the NCAA that week. One week later, he took to the track at the Hoosier Open in Indiana and busted out a time of 33.98 in the 300m for the #2 time in the nation and the fastest recorded in school history. In fact, his time not only was the first in UC history to go under 34 seconds, it also snapped the 33-year-old record of 34.31 run by Chuck Kiser in 1986. Oh, and if you are doing the math, the 33 year-old mark was broken by... 0.33 seconds.

// FOLLOW US
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.

// UP NEXT
The 2020 outdoor season gets underway next week with a pair of meets awaiting the Bearcats. Much of the team will travel to Houston on March 19 for the Houston Invitational while the rest of the team will remain in the area and compete at Miami's Blizzard Buster meet on March 20 in Oxford.