Tickets"We are really excited to go Music City Challenge this weekend," head coach Susan Seaton said.' It is a good meet with a lot of good competition. We are putting our squads back together and having the full team that we are planning to bring to the conference championships compete together this weekend to get some of the postseason atmosphere going and fine-tune everything before the conference championships."
// MUSIC CITY CHALLENGE
The Music City Challenge will be hosted by Vanderbilt inside the Vanderbilt Multipurpose Facility. The meet will open on Friday, Feb. 10, with field events starting at 11 a.m. ET, while running events will start at 5 p.m. ET.
The meet will conclude on Saturday, Feb. 11, with the running events starting at 9 a.m. and field events to follow at 9:30 a.m. A complete schedule of events and start times can be found attached above.
Those not in attendance can follow the action at the Music City Challenge through the PrimeTime Timing live results and on the SEC+ station watch link found above.
// BEARCATS IN THE RANKINGS
In the latest USTFCCCA Conference Rankings, both teams stand second in the American Athletic Conference. In this week's USTFCCCA Regional Rankings, the women's team is ranked sixth in the Great Lakes Region, while the men are ninth.
Cincinnati holds top marks or times in eight events in the conference, with both the men and women share the conference lead in four events.
Senior Rylee Penn is the only Bearcat to lead the conference in two different events. Penn's indoor school-record women's 3,000-meter time of 9:14.54 is 15 seconds faster than the next best time in the conference. She also leads the conference in the women's mile with a time of 4:37.19, the second fastest time in program history.
In the latest USTFCCCA Event Squad rankings, the Bearcats have two groups ranked inside the top five nationally with the women's high jump in second and the men's shot put in fourth.
Th women's high jump squad holds the top four spots in the conference. Senior Taylor Beard leads the conference and ranks tenth nationally with a mark of 1.84 meters. Beard's personal record leap leads the conference and is the fourth-best indoor mark in program history. Sophomore Annika Kinley holds a clearance of 1.81 meters, which is second in the conference and 21st in the nation, while sophomore Spirit Morgan has cleared 1.78 meters and freshman Lauren Barnes has posted 1.76 meters to round out the top four in the conference.
The dynamic pair of senior Fred Moudani and junior Giovanni Gutierrez lead the men's shot put group by holding the top two spots in the conference.
Moudani is coming off his best performance of the season as he broke French national indoor, AAC and Cincinnati, shot put records with a throw of 20.51 meters at the Doc Hale Meet on Feb. 4th. Moundani's mark leads the conference and ranks second in the NCAA in his first season at Cincinnati, only behind Arizona's Jordan Geist at 21.48 meters. For more about his record-setting performance, read below.
Not to be outdone, Gutierrez sits second in the AAC and 27th nationally in the shot put with a throw of 18.75 meters.
Sophomores Steven McElroy and Korbin Spencer each hold AAC top marks in their respective events. McElroy UC indoor 400-meter record time of 46.44 leads the conference and 21st nationally. Spencer's weight throw mark of 18.89m is currently the best in the AAC.
Cincinnati also leads the AAC in both the men's and women's distance medley relay. The men's DMR team of freshman Seth Elking., sophomore Jack Barchet, junior David Endres and graduate student Jamie Dailey rank first in the AAC with the third-fastest DMR time (9:52.12) in school history.
The women's DMR team of freshman pair Gwen Stare and Sarah Madix and senior teammates Maddie Walker and Carmen Licht lead the AAC with the sixth fastest time in program history at 11:46.01.
// MOUDANI NAMED AAC MEN'S FIELD ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Senior Fred Moudani was named American Athletic Conference Co-Men's Field Athlete of the Week on Tuesday.
Moudani earned the distinction for the first time in his career after his record-setting shot put mark of 20.51 meters at the Doc Hale Meet on Feb. 4. The performance surpassed the previous school-record and indoor conference record, which he previously set twice earlier this season.
"We are extremely proud of Fred's accomplishment," head coach Susan Seaton said. "He has put in a tremendous amount of work this season and I am honored to have been a part of his development. We are extremely excited to see what the rest of this season holds as we head into the postseason."
A native of Savigny-Le-Temple, France, Moudani's mark also eclipsed the French National indoor shot-put record, which was previously held by Yves Niaré's 20.42-meter throw in 2009.
Moundani's mark leads the conference and ranks second in the NCAA in his first season at Cincinnati, only behind Arizona's Jordan Geist at 21.48 meters.
The senior has won the event in all four meets that he has competed in this season.
He shared this week's honor with Memphis pole vaulter Cole Riddle after the Tiger set the conference pole vault record with a clearance of 5.64 meters at the USA Invitational.
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