The winner’s circle at this past weekend’s Texas Tech Masked Rider Open was full of purple and white.
The invitational meet drew in a large crowd filled with 1,000 student-athletes representing 27 schools at the D-I and D-II levels.
Four-time all-American Amanda Ouedraogo’s triple jump distance of 41 feet-0.25 inches qualified her for another NCAA Indoor Championships this winter.
A seasoned ACU veteran from Hauts de Seine, France, Ouedraogo is known for taking a big risk in last year’s Indoor National Championships when her first place finish triple jump was her first attempted jump. (Most test the first jump, but she just went for it). Assistant track and field coach Jerrod Cook has gotten to know her pretty well the past few years coaching her at a high level.
Freshman phenom, Johnathan Farquarshon from the Bahamas, won the 55 meter sprint recording the fastest opening time of 6.33 seconds and then lowered his time to 6.30 to win the event.
Farquarshon was just one thousadth of a second shy of former alums Larry Jones and Ralph Roberts. He is ranked 6th out of all D-II athletes which places him very close to ACU’s all-time top 10 55 meter sprinters.
Junior transfer -and former football player at Oklahoma State University, Andrew Hudson, had little to no experience when hurling the weight, but was a 2012 regional qualifier for OSU in the discus.
“He placed second at the meet and improved his performance prior to last week’s meet,” Cook said. “He has come so far in such a short amount of time. What really separates Hudson from the competition is he puts in so much of the wrench time outside of practice.”
Baptiste Kerjean took first place for the second consecutive time in the 35-pound weight throw at a distance of 17.70 meters.
“I’m thinking about being ready in two more weeks when we start conference play to compete at my highest level. I hope to throw at least 18 meters before nationals to push myself in nationals,” Kerjean said.
Half of the team traveled to the Air Force Academy on Tuesday while the other half traveled to Albuquerque for the New Mexico International. Results of the meets will be posted on the acusports.com homepage.
