June 8, 2005

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -

The University of Kansas track and field team competed at day one of the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Championships in Sacramento, Calif., on Wednesday. The Jayhawks will feature 12 student-athletes at the meet, the most in the Stanley Redwine era at KU.

Five Jayhawks competed in the qualifying rounds on Wednesday.

Junior Sheldon Battle competed in two qualifying events on day one. Battle placed second in the preliminaries of shot put as he won the first flight with a best throw of 63-05.50. Battle, who is competing in three events at the meet, also competed in the hammer, finishing 16^th in the prelims with a toss of 199-05.

Senior Jeremy Mims will also move on to the finals. Mims placed second in his heat and seventh overall in the preliminaries of the 800-meters with a time of 1:48.94. Mims will take on the rest of the qualifiers in the semi-final round at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Junior Benson Chesang finished 17th in the prelims of the 5,000-meters with a time of 14:05.53.

"We had some good performances today," head coach Stanley Redwine said. "When you come to this meet, you have to step it up to another level, you can't be satisfied by just being here."

"We are looking forward to big performances on Thursday," Redwine added. "Everyone is excited and ready to go."

KU will have six competitors on Thursday. Senior Jen Widerstrom will compete in the hammer throw qualifying round at 1 p.m. Battle and sophomore Gavin Ball will throw the discus at 3:15 p.m., while senior Amy Linnen and freshman Ekaterina Sultanova will compete in the pole vault at 7 p.m.

Wednesday's Results