Tyson David Repeats as 10,000 Meter SEC Champion
5/15/2009 12:00:00 AM
May 15, 2009
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - The Alabama men's track and field team returned to competition at the SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Friday at James G. Pressly Stadium at Percy Beard Track. The Crimson Tide left the track with a SEC Champion Friday night.
"I'm proud of how everyone competed here over the first couple of days," head coach Harvey Glance said. "I'm extremely proud of Justin Brady coming within five points of being an SEC scorer and Clyburn to finish even after a disappointing last year when he didn't make it through the meet so that is a plus for him and his confidence."
The decathlon contest resumed in the early afternoon with the 100m hurdles where David Clyburn picked up a seventh place finish winning his heat with a time of 16.05.
Clyburn set a four-foot personal best in the discus to finish 10th with a throw of 95-9 1/4.
In the pole vault, Brady cleared 13-7 1/4 and Clyburn cleared 13-3 1/2 to finish seventh and ninth, respectively.
Brady turned in a second place finish in the javelin with a heave of 167-5, bettering his previous best throw by over 20 feet as Clyburn placed fifth with his throw of 158-2.
In the final event of the decathlon, the 1,500m run, Brady (4:49.36) and Clyburn (5:10.67) finished sixth and 10th, respectively. Both athletes' times were personal bests.
In the final standings, Brady just missed scoring for the Crimson Tide as he finished ninth with 6,061 points, but his point total is a personal best by nearly 400 points.
Aaron Stockstell advanced to Sunday's 800m final when he finished eighth in the prelims with a personal best time of 1:49.79. All nine competitors in the final ran under 1:50.12 in the prelims. Stockstell's time is 10th all-time in school history.
Though Ray Jadusingh tied his personal best time of 21.10 and running a season best time by .63 seconds, he did not advance to the final of the 200m, an event in which the slowest time through was 20.97.
"Of course Aaron [Stockstell] making the final at SECs as a freshman and running a personal best in the process when even the defending SEC Champion didn't make it was great to see," Glance said. "Ray [Jadusingh] did a good job, [David] Chaplin did a good job, it's this league, it's just so tough. These preliminary heats are all about lane and heat draws and everything is on time, its tough."
Tyson David repeated as the 10,000m SEC Champion winning by just four seconds over the 2008 SEC cross country champion, Girma Mecheso of Auburn. The senior won the race with a time of 30:09.50, almost two minutes slower than last year's race. With David's repeat, he became the first Alabama athlete to repeat in back-to-back years since Ron Bramlett in the 110m hurdles in 2001-02. David is also the reigning 2009 5,000m SEC Indoor Champion.
"I didn't mind about the pace too much because I had already qualified for nationals so I just wanted to win the title," David said. "It feels good to win another SEC title."
After day two, Alabama sits in a tie for sixth place with No. 2 Florida, each with 10 points. No. 20 Georgia leads the field with 28 points and is followed by Auburn (18) and LSU (16).
"Tyson was just Tyson defending his SEC Championship and scoring 10 valuable points for us and closing out the night on a good note," Glance said. "We needed that for a good boost and hopefully we'll just keep building on these performances that we saw today."
The men will return to the oval at 12:00 p.m. EST for the javelin throw. The 1,500 will be the first running event for the men and is slated for a 6:00 p.m. EST start.
