Kansas men up to No. 20 in latest NCAA rankings
Link USTFCCCA Top 25
NEW ORLEANS –The Kansas men’s track & field team found itself ranked inside the top-25 of the first regular-season national rankings released by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Monday. The Jayhawks checked in at No. 20, which marks the highest indoor ranking by a Kansas men’s squad since the current format began in 2008.
Kansas enters the top-25 for the first time since 2010 with the help of six individual performances over the last two weekends that have Jayhawks near the top of the national rankings in their respective events.
Senior Jake Albright holds the NCAA’s No. 1 pole vault mark after posting a career-best clearance of 5.54 meters (18-2) at the Rod McCravy Memorial last weekend. Albright headlines a group of four Jayhawk vaulters who currently find themselves sitting among the top-12 in their event. Senior Nick Meyer is coming off also coming off a career outing last weekend in Lexington which saw him post the No. 9 vault this year (5.44m/17-10¼). Sophomore Paulo Benavides sits at No. 7 with his personal-best clearance (5.45m/17-10½) on Jan. 14 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Invitational in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Senior Nick Maestretti joins his teammates near the top of the standings at 12th via his season-best performance (5.35m/17-6½), also in Albuquerque.
Senior Strymar Livingston has the nation’s fifth-fastest 800-meter clocking up to this point in the 2017 campaign. Livingston ran to a personal-best time of 1:47.95 at the Rod McCravy Saturday, the No. 3 time in program history.
Junior Barden Adams is also sitting in the top-five of the latest national standings after his outing at Nutter Field House in Lexington last weekend. Adams won the triple jump with a personal-record leap of 16.00 meters (52-6), a mark that has the West Orange, New Jersey native ranked fifth in the NCAA ranks.
No. 20 Kansas will return home this week to host the Jayhawk Classic Jan. 26-27 inside Anschutz Pavilion. The men’s heptathlon will kick off the meet on Thursday afternoon with the remainder of the events to take place throughout the day Friday. Log on to KUAthletics.com for complete recaps of each day’s events and follow live via Twitter and Instagram at @KUTrack.
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