Texas A&M, NCAA national champions last spring for men and women, returns to the Armory for the 2010 New Balance Collegiate Invitational Feb. 5-6. The Aggies, coached by Pat Henry, were women’s team champions at last year’s NB meet as well. Baylor won the men’s.
Not content to rest on its laurels, A&M added a number of star sprinters and hurdlers to its squad in the off-season, including an Olympic semifinalist in the men’s 400, Tabarie Henry, and the Pan-Am Games Junior champion in the men’s high hurdles, Wayne Davis. The women’s squad picked up Natasha Ruddock, who won the national junior college 100 hurdles last year for New Jersey’s Essex County College, and Jeneba Tarmoh, a transfer from Tennessee who was a gold medalist at two different World Juniors meets in the sprints.
Tabarie Henry, a junior from the Virgin Islands who attended Barton County Junior College the last two years, has run 44.77 for 400 meters and 20.71 for 200, both national records for the USVI. He made the 400 semis in Beijing and was 4th in the World Championships last summer in Berlin. He will be a welcome addition to the 4x4, which finished runnerup last year in the NCAA finals to clinch the team title for the A&M men, minutes after the women had won theirs, the first national team titles for Coach Pat Henry at A&M. Returning from that 4x4 is Bryan Miller (45.57).
In the men’s short dashes, A&M features veteran Gerald Phiri (10.13/20.29), a semifinalist in Berlin in the 100 for Zambia, and newcomer Curtis Mitchell (10.23w/20.58), the California junior college champion in the 100 and 200. Mitchell, who attended Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif., is a native of Daytona Beach, Fla.
The A&M women’s squad, like the men’s, is focused on the sprints, hurdles and jumps. They return all four members of last year’s national-championship 4x1 – Khrystal Carter, Porscha Lucas, Dominique Duncan and Gabby Mayo. They won the NCAA in 42.36.
Lucas is reigning NCAA champion in the 200, where she has a best of 22.29. Mayo placed in both the 100 hurdles (best of 12.96) and 100 (11.13) at the NCAA. They will be joined in the sprints by Tarmoh (11.21/22.94), the World Junior champion in the 100 in 2008, and in the hurdles by Ruddock, who attended St. Jago High School in Jamaica and has a hurdle best of 13.15.
In the jumps, A&M is led by triplejumpers Julian Reid, Tyron Stewart and Zuheir Sharif, all of whom scored in the NCAA last year. Reid, who attended Wolmer’s Boys in Jamaica, has jumped 26-10w in the long jump and 56-1 1/4w in the triple. In the latter at the NB meet he will face Will Claye of Oklahoma, the NCAA champ last year as a freshman at OU, who has jumped 56-6 3/4w. The 18-year-old Claye broke the U.S. Junior record in the event last year.
The 2010 New Balance meet includes Open, Juniors, high school and college competition featuring more than 200 college teams from around the country, including Arkansas, Louisiana State, Brigham Young, Tennessee, Texas, UCLA, Villanova, Georgetown, Michigan, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
Tickets are available in advance by contacting Rita Finkel at the Armory 212-923-1803 x32. Tickets are $20 a day for Adults, $12 for students, and $30 for Reserved seating. Group sales are also available. Further information is available at the Armory website www.ArmoryTrack.com. /JP/