B1G Outdoor Championships Await Wolverines
5/10/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track & Field
May 10, 2017
Coach Clayton has one simple challenge for everyone on the men's team to maximize the squad's @bigtenchamps potential this weekend pic.twitter.com/ilDBuWtOeI
— Michigan Track&Field (@UMichTrack) May 11, 2017
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THIS WEEK
Fri-Sun., May 12-14 -- at Big Ten Outdoor Championships (State College, Pa.), Noon/9:30 a.m./11:30 a.m.
• Meet Information | Live Results
• BTN2Go: Saturday (1:20 p.m.) | Sunday (11:30 a.m.) | Sunday (1:45 p.m.)
After a strong month of April split up to various meets around the nation chasing qualifying marks, the University of Michigan men's track and field team reconvenes its full roster this weekend for the Big Ten Championships at Penn State on Friday through Sunday (May 12-14).
With a well-balanced roster led by several All-Americans, the Wolverines enter State College taking aim at recapturing as much of the magic that led to their runner-up finish a year ago as possible.
"We're going to put together the best team we have and line them up, and hopefully we'll continue to have the success we've had in the past," men's head coach Jerry Clayton said. "The goal is for everyone to finish higher than they came in ranked in their event. If they do that, we will score and perform at the best of our ability."
Leading the way for Michigan will be defending 400-meter hurdles champion Taylor McLaughlin and top-seeded hammer thrower Joe Ellis. Several other athletes, including distance runner Connor Mora, decathlete Steven Bastien and thrower Grant Cartwright, are also projected to put up big points for the Wolverines over the course of the weekend.
Fans can follow all the action from Penn State via live results at Primetime Timing, and the Big Ten Network will provide a BTN2Go live stream of Saturday's field event finals and all the action on Sunday.
THE MEET
Action at Penn State's Nittany Lion Outdoor Track begins Friday at noon with the decathlon, followed by a 9:30 a.m. start on Saturday and an 11:30 a.m. start on Sunday. Friday and Saturday's events on the track will largely be preliminary rounds -- with a distance event final to conclude each day -- followed up by a day of finals-only track action on Sunday.
Field event finals will be contested all three days, with the decathlon scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
Event champions in each final earn 10 points for their teams, with points allocated to each finisher and their respective teams through eighth place (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1).
The team with the most points at the end of the meet -- which is composed of 10 individual track events, two relays and nine field events -- will be crowned the Big Ten champion.
THE KEY PERFORMERS
• The Wolverines return about two-thirds of the 90.5 points they scored as the conference runners-up a year ago, including two reigning champions in McLaughlin and 10,000-meter winner Ben Flanagan. The latter will be making his 2017 outdoor debut as he returns to form from an earlier injury.
• McLaughlin may enter as the fifth-ranked 400-meter hurdler in the field at 50.86, but he enters with momentum on his side after two consecutive wins in his signature race. Notably, McLaughlin came into this meet as a freshman a year ago ranked third before claiming the title. He earned All-America honors and an IAAF World Junior Championships silver medal.
• Ellis enters as the highest-ranked Wolverine both among Big Ten student-athletes and nationally. With his school-record hammer throw performance of 69.30m (227-4) two weeks ago at Texas, he is the pre-meet favorite in his signature event and is ranked 10th in the nation. He finished sixth at this meet as a freshman last year.
• Cartwright will join Ellis in the hammer throw and will also lead the way for Michigan in both the shot put and the discus. Based on the seeding, he is projected to score points in all three events -- as the No. 6 seed both in the shot put and hammer, and the No. 7 seed in the discus -- and he is one of just two men in the country ranked top-50 nationally in all three events. He took fifth in both the shot and discus a year ago.
• Cartwright and Ellis will look to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle that was the 2017 indoor postseason. Behind Cartwright's school-record throw, the duo went 1-2 at the Big Ten Indoor Championships in the weight throw and then went on to finish runner-up and seventh, respectively, at the NCAA Championships.
• Last year's decathlon runner-up Bastien will look to not only replicate or improve upon that performance from a year ago, but he has the extra incentive of chasing a qualifying mark for the NCAA Championships. After bowing out of the Georgia Bulldog Decathlon a month ago, the three-time first team All-American will need to post a big score to ensure he is among the 24 men who advance to NCAAs in mid-June.
• Mora will lead a strong distance squad into Happy Valley, ranked 18th nationally and second among Big Ten competitors in the steeplechase. Not only does he have speed to burn -- as one of U-M's three sub-four-minute milers from this past indoor season, as well -- but also experience. With the graduation of Big Ten and national champion steeplechaser Mason Ferlic, Mora's runner-up finish a year ago makes him the highest-placing returner from that race a year ago.
• He will be joined by indoor All-America miler Ned Willig -- another of the sub-four milers from this winter -- at both 800 and 1,500 meters, Aaron Baumgarten at 5,000 and 10,000 meters, and Brennan Munley at 800 meters. Baumgarten ranks fifth at 10,000 meters this year in the conference, while Munley comes in ranked sixth at 800 meters and was the eighth-place finisher in that event a year ago.
• Javelinist Stephen Burk will look to close out his Big Ten career with a third consecutive scoring performance. Currently ranked seventh in the conference, he finished fifth a year ago and third in 2014 as a sophomore. Last year, he improved from the No. 13 seed to fifth when all was said and done.
• As he so often has in the past, Kevin Stephens Jr. coming through in the clutch in the triple jump will again be key to Michigan's overall success. His season-best jumps for the 2016 indoor and outdoor seasons, and the 2017 indoor season, all came at the Big Ten Championships as he finished second, fourth and fifth at those respective championship meets.
• Every point matters in championship settings like this weekend, which makes performances like Kevin Haughn's from a year ago crucially important. Seeded 14th in the 2016 pole vault competition, Haughn outperformed his rank to finish tied for sixth to score a point-and-a-half. Michigan claimed second over Purdue by three-and-a-half. Haughn -- as well as teammate Nick Burkhalter -- have both established new outdoor career bests in the past two weekends.
• Another such performance is sprinter Khoury Crenshaw's from this past indoor season's Big Ten Championships. Despite not being projected to score, the junior ran a new career best to advance to the final where he ultimately finished fourth. He is now in position at this outdoor championship as one of the scoring favorites, seeded sixth overall at 100 meters.
• Thirteen student-athletes will be making their Big Ten Outdoor Championships debuts this weekend, including eighth-ranked shot putter Andrew Liskowitz.
WOLVERINES IN THE RANKINGS
• The Wolverines have nine performances ranked top-50 in the nation so far this year, including three in the top 15. Sprinters, hurdlers, distance runners and throwers are all represented.
| Name | Event | Rank |
| Joe Ellis | Hammer | #10 |
| Connor Mora | Steeplechase | #18 |
| Taylor McLaughlin | 400 Hurdles | #21 |
| Stephen Burk | Javelin | #26 |
| Grant Cartwright | Shot Put | #37 |
| Grant Cartwright | Hammer | #40 |
| Brennan Munley | 800m | #43 |
| Grant Cartwright | Discus | #45 |
| Andrew Liskowitz | Shot Put | #46 |
• The Wolverines are in position to send a big contingent to the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds May 25-27 in Lexington, Kentucky, in hopes of qualifying to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Fifteen performances are currently ranked in the top 48 in the East Region, which is the cutoff to make the meet. The top 12 finishers in each event at the Prelims advance to Eugene.
| Name | Event | Rank |
| Joe Ellis | Hammer | #9 |
| Connor Mora | Steeplechase | #10 |
| Taylor McLaughlin | 400 Hurdles | #10 |
| Stephen Burk | Javelin | #13 |
| Grant Cartwright | Shot Put | #20 |
| Andrew Liskowitz | Shot Put | #24 |
| Grant Cartwright | Discus | #25 |
| Grant Cartwright | Hammer | #26 |
| Brennan Munley | 800m | #27 |
| Khoury Crenshaw | 100m | #33 |
| Steven Bastien | Long Jump | #36 |
| Aaron Baumgarten | 5,000m | #37 |
| Micah Beller | 5,000m | #41 |
| Austin Benoit | 3,000 Steeple | #43 |
| Ned Willig | 1,500m | #44 |
Tweet of the Week 
Joe Ellis enters the @bigtenchamps this week as the top seed in the hammer throw and the highest-ranked U-M man in the nation #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/MDJ7xfr50K
-- Michigan Track&Field (@UMichTrack) May 9, 2017
Communications Contact: Kyle Terwillegar
Players Mentioned
