Wray and Bair both earn All-America status

It came as no surprise to anyone that Pitt’s representatives in the NCAA Indoor Track and… It came as no surprise to anyone that Pitt’s representatives in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., this past weekend were juniors Mike Wray and Sam Bair – the same two athletes who have delivered star performances all season long.

Wray qualified to compete in the 60-meter hurdles after a personal-best time of 7.69 seconds. He holds the school record in this event and is a two-time Big East champion. Bair qualified to compete in the mile, having run a season-best time of 4:00.87. He holds the school record with a time of 4:00.14, which he set last year.

Just prior to the championships, Bair was recognized as the Mid-Atlantic Track Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. A competitor in the Mid-Atlantic region, Bair was one of nine male track student-athletes awarded, all of whom were recognized at the indoor nationals for their accomplishments.

At the competitions, Bair proved that he deserved the national recognition by earning All-America status in the mile. Bair ran a time of 4:01.99 and placed seventh overall.

“We expected him to do a little bit better, and he wanted to run a sub-four minute mile,” Pitt head coach Alonzo Webb said. “But any time you are named an All-American you can’t be too disappointed because you are running against the best in the country.”

Wray also became an All-American by placing seventh in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.92. Despite being named a first-time All-American, the seventh-place finish was disappointing for Wray, who ran a school-record time of 7.61 in the preliminaries, which put him in first place heading into the final race. That time was especially surprising considering he also hit two hurdles along the way. Prior to the championships, Wray had not been beaten by a fellow collegiate this year.

“Our goal for him was to be the national indoor and outdoor champion, and he easily could have done that, but his tendonitis flared up between the prelims and the final,” Webb said. “All of the other coaches were coming up to me saying, ‘Your kid is the best runner here, no one should have beaten him,’ so yes, we were disappointed.”

This was the second consecutive appearance at the indoor nationals for Bair, and it was Wray’s first.

But before the NCAAs, Wray and the rest of the Panthers had some more business to take care of. The weekend of March 3, some of the men competed at the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America Championships, while the women attended the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships.

The absence of a break after the Big East Championships two weeks before did not seem to affect the Panthers, either, as the team performed with passion and energy en route to a few dominating performances.

At the IC4A’s, Wray took his second indoor championship title this season after placing first in the 55-meter hurdles at the IC4A Championships. He broke the facility record in the event with a time of 7.18 seconds. Wray additionally won the Big East title in the 60-meter hurdles this year.

Also competing for the men was Andy Tomaswick, who finished 11th in the 5,000 meters with a personal-best time of 14:25.37.

The Pitt women earned a total of 52 points at the ECAC Championships, good enough for second place behind Connecticut.

Season-long leader Shantea Calhoun finished fourth in the 60 meters with a time of 7.54. She was also one of two finalists in the 200 meters, placing fourth again.

In the 500 meters, Pitt had two more finalists in senior Julianna Reed and freshman Kari Hedderick. Reed placed fourth with a time of 1:13.78, and Hedderick came in fifth. Sophomore Mycaiah Clemons was the runner-up in the 60-meter hurdles, running a time of 8.63. In the field, Janessa Murphy won the long jump competition and took seventh in the triple jump with a distance of 11.96 meters.

With the championships now behind them, Webb will immediately begin preparing his team for the outdoor track and field season, which begins in two weeks. The athletes will be split in the upcoming meets with some heading to the Stanford Invitational and the rest going to the Fred Hardy Invitational in Richmond, Va.