March 23, 2011
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame men’s and women’s track and field teams are set to compete in a trio of weekend meets. The multi-events student-athletes begin the Alabama Relays Thursday at the Sam Bailey Track and Field Complex in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The sprinters, jumpers and throwers will travel to Tempe, Ariz. for the Arizona State Invitational set to take place Friday and Saturday at the Sun Angel Stadium. The final meet includes the middle distance and distance runners, who will run in the Stanford Invitational on Friday and Saturday at the Cobb Track in Palo Alto, Calif.
Junior Maddie Buttinger (Waterloo, Ontario/Resurrection C.S.S.) will represent the women’s team in the heptathlon, which begins at 10:00 a.m. (ET) Thursday. On the men’s side, senior Justin Schneider (Atlanta, Ga./Greater Atlanta Christian), sophomore Dean Odegard (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South) and sophomore Alex Bavis (Fort Wayne, Ind./Bishop Dwenger) will commence competition in the decathlon at Noon.
There are 23 student-athletes who are traveling to Tempe for the Arizona State Invitational among them, senior Rudy Atang (Houston, Texas/St. Pius X) who returns to action after a 15.64m career-best throw and Notre Dame record in the shot put at the Alex Wilson Invitational. Also highlighting the trip, Patrick Feeney (Indianapolis, Ind./New Palestine) enters the meet with an All-American accolade as the freshman ran the 400-meter portion of the distance medley relay to a fourth-place finish in 9:30.16 in College Station, Texas.
The meet will feature Baylor, Boise State, Georgia, Kansas State, New Mexico, Northern Arizona, South Dakota State, TCU, Texas A&M, California-Riverside, Utah women’s team and Weber State. The hammer throw and pole vault competition will be held on Friday, followed by all other events on Saturday.
The final group of 22 student-athletes will head even further west to Palo Alto, Calif. for the Stanford Invitational. Making her 2011 track debut is graduate student and 2009 cross country All-American Lindsey Ferguson (Greenfield Center, N.Y./Saratoga Springs). Additionally, the rest of the 2011 Indoor All-American distance medley relay, Johnathan Shawel (Placentia, Calif./Troy), Jack Howard (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) and Jeremy Rae (Fort Erie, Ontario/Lakeshore Catholic) will also return to action.
Complete results from the Alabama Relays, Arizona State Invite and Stanford Invitational will be available at the conclusion of each day.
–ND–