Michigan
NCAA Indoor Championships
Michigan's Throws Corps Looks for National Glory at NCAA Indoor Championships
3/6/2018 5:08:00 PM | Men's Track & Field
» The weight-throw duo of Joe Ellis and Grant Cartwright are looking to cement their legacy as one of the best duos in collegiate history and recapture their All-America honors from a year ago.
» Sophomore shot-putter Andrew Liskowitz is going for Michigan's first top-eight finish in the event at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
» Those three make Michigan the only school in the country with three throwers at the national meet.
THIS WEEK
Fri-Sat., March 9-10 -- NCAA Indoor Championships (College Station, Texas), noon CST
Meet Homepage | Live Results | ESPN3 Live Streams: Fri | Sat
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Three throwers from the University of Michigan men's track and field team are set to take on the nation's best this Friday and Saturday (March 9-10) at the NCAA Indoor Championships at Gilliam Indoor Stadium in College Station, Texas.
Weight throwers Joe Ellis and Grant Cartwright return to the national meet in pursuit of first-team All-America honors for the second season in a row, joined this year by shot-putter Andrew Liskowitz.
Those three -- the core of U-M's self-proclaimed "Meat Factory" throws group -- gives Michigan the largest corps of throwers of any men's team at NCAAs. Seven other teams qualified two men total in the weight throw and/or shot put.
Sophomore Liskowitz, one of the few underclassmen in the shot-put field, is up first for the Wolverine men at 7:20 p.m. CT on Friday, with Ellis and Cartwright in action Saturday starting at 2 p.m. CT.
Cartwright and Ellis return to the same ring in which they finished national runner-up and seventh place, respectively, last March, with both men ranked top-six nationally heading into the championships. They combined for 10 points in the team standings a year ago and propelled Michigan to a tie for 22nd in the country.
This weekend marks the final indoor meet of Cartwright's career, which gives him and Ellis one more chance to cement their legacy as one of the greatest weight-throw duos in collegiate history in terms of NCAA finish and combined distance.
ESPN3 will broadcast the NCAA Indoor Championships live, but the stream will focus primarily on the track events with intermittent field event updates. Friday's shot put will take place during the live stream window (5:30-9:15 p.m. CT), but Saturday's weight throw will likely conclude prior to the start of the ESPN3 broadcast which begins at 4 p.m. CT.
Fans can follow throw-by-throw live results by way of NCAA.com, and the official social media channels of Michigan track and field.
WHEN TO WATCH THE WOLVERINES
| Wolverines at the NCAA Indoor Championships | |||
| Name | Event | Round | Day / Time |
| Andrew Liskowitz | Shot Put | Final | March 9 / 7:20 PM CT |
| Grant Cartwright | Weight Throw | Final | March 10 / 2 PM CT |
| Joe Ellis | Weight Throw | Final | March 10 / 2 PM CT |
Ellis & Cartwright Looking to Make History in Weight Throw
• Ellis and Cartwright came just four centimeters shy of the all-time collegiate record for combined distance by a pair of teammates in a single meet in a 1-3 finish at the Big Ten Indoor Championships two weekends ago. Ellis tossed a new school record 23.64m (77 feet, 6.75 inches) with Cartwright going a season's best 22.87m (75-0.5), totaling 46.51m between the two. Among pairs of teammates in collegiate history, only Virginia Tech's Spyridon Jullien and Mohsen Anani at the 2006 NCAA Indoor Championships went further at 46.55m, and none have logged a superior pre-NCAA Championships performance.
• While Ellis may enter the meet ranked No. 3 nationally (with Cartwright at No. 6), he is unrivaled this year in his consistency. Of the 10 farthest throws nationally this year, Ellis' name is attached to five of them. He is the only man to have thrown 23 meters or farther multiple times in multiple meets. That consistency makes him one of the favorites to claim the national title, which would be Michigan's first indoor field-event national title for the men, and the first overall in the field since Dave Owen claimed the 1957 outdoor title in the shot put.
• Of the two men ranked ahead of Ellis -- national leader Josh Davis of NC State and Denzel Comenentia of Georgia -- the Wolverines may have an edge over them. Both Ellis and Cartwright topped Davis in early February at the Michigan-hosted Power Five Invitational, while Comenentia will be coming off what will likely be an intense shot-put competition that will likely last until nearly 9 p.m. CT the night before.
• Cartwright has not yet had the same explosion that resulted in a then-school record 23.31m (76-5.5) throw to win last year's Big Ten title, he has been throwing much farther much more consistently throughout the entire season. Heading into NCAAs last year, his average throw traveled 20.65m (67-9); his average throw in 2018 is 21.94m (72-0) with his shortest measured throw of 20.67m (67-9.75) superior to last year's average. His big breakthrough came in his fifth meet of the season last year; this year's NCAA is his fifth meet of 2018. Momentum is on his side with four of his six farthest throws coming in his most recent outing at Big Tens, including his two best of the season.
• Cartwright went 22.70m (74-5.75) for second and Ellis took seventh at 21.73m (71-3.5) last season. That combined performance marked just the sixth time teammates had thrown farther than 21.50m at the same NCAA meet. Co-head coach Jerry Clayton has accounted for half of those instances, between Ellis/Cartwright and Cory Martin/Jake Dunkleberger (twice at Auburn in 2006 and 2007).
• Only twice have teammates thrown 22 meters or farther in the same NCAA meet, as the duos of Martin/Dunkleberger (Auburn) and Jullien/Anani (Virginia Tech) accomplished that feat in 2006. Never before have two teammates gone 23 meters or farther at the same nationals.
Liskowitz Goes for All-America Honors in the Shot Put
• After making it into the 16-competitor NCAA Championships field as the second-to-last man accepted, Liskowitz will be aiming to earn Michigan's first top-eight finish in the event at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
• Liskowitz is the only sophomore in the field and one of five underclassmen; the other four are freshmen. Liskowitz was the top freshman shot-putter of the outdoor season and the only first-year competitor to make the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the event last year. That outdoor season and this indoor campaign are in sharp contrast to his debut indoor season a year ago, when he finished 17th in the event at the Big Ten Indoor Championships and threw just 17.26m (56-7.5) -- nearly seven feet shy of his best mark of 19.36m (63-6.25) in 2018.
• With that season- and career-best mark from the Power Five Invitational in early February, Liskowitz remains just shy of the 19.50m (63-11.75) school record established in 2015 by Derek Sievers.
• Currently in the midst of tweaking his technique, Liskowitz will look for another breakthrough meet after he was unable to crack the 19-meter threshold in his previous three meets, which culminated in a fourth-place finish at the Big Ten Indoor Championships.
Players Mentioned
