Hurdles handled: Larkin, Hexum pick up pace
May 09, 2009 | Men's Track & Field
In their last home meet of the 2009 season, a select number of athletes from the Wisconsin men's track and field team took advantage of the Wisconsin Twilight Invitational on Saturday and made valuable strides heading into the Big Ten Championships next weekend.
The highlight of the Saturday's competition on the track came during the 110-meter hurdles.
Back on March 27 at the Stanford Invitational, freshman Adam Hexum opened up his first outdoor campaign at UW with a mark of 15.16 seconds. Less than six weeks since that race in Palo Alto, Calif., Hexum posted an NCAA regional qualifying time of 14.18 seconds Saturday afternoon.
The career-best mark by was an improvement of 35 hundredths of a second over his previous best of 14.53, which he set at last week's Wisconsin Open.
'To run a race like today definitely helps with my confidence because it makes me believe that I can run with some of the best in the conference,' Hexum said. 'The main improvement that I made was that I stopped focusing on how Nate Larkin was running and instead put the blinders on to run to the best of my ability.
'Even while still looking forward, his presence as the captain helped pull me to run faster.'
Running alongside Hexum, Larkin also posted a personal-best time of 14.03 to improve his NCAA regional mark in the hurdles. The junior from Glen Ellyn, Ill., outran his previous top mark of 14.11 to win the event just ahead of Hexum.
Even though he was happy with his accomplishments, Larkin was even more excited about the success of his freshman teammate.
'With hurdling, it's one of those races where it can only benefit you to latch on to someone,' Larkin said. 'It's always fun to see the younger guys succeed and that's a huge personal record for him.
'To train with Adam every day and see how hard he works, I'm really excited to see him break out at this point in the season.'
Sophomore Robert Dehn boosted his previous regional qualifying mark in the javelin, adding five inches to his lifetime best by reaching 217 feet, 6 inches to win the event Saturday.
'I was looking to build toward Big Tens and improve on each throw,' Dehn said about his successful toss. 'Coach (Ed) Nuttycombe just told me to focus on the technical aspects and I was pretty happy with the result.'
Dehn is ranked second in the conference in the javelin heading into next week's Big Ten meet and also ranks second all-time at UW. Even though he continues to improve each week, Dehn still realizes that he is yet to reach his full potential in the particular event.
'With Big Tens coming up, I just need to focus on smoothing everything out so that I can throw my best next weekend,' he said. 'I'm not looking to make any changes as this point in the season, so I just need to perfect what I have and move on from there.'
Also in the field events, sophomore Mickey DeFilippo continued to challenge the notion that consistency is difficult to achieve in the pole vault.
For the seventh time in as many attempts this season, DiFilippo cleared the NCAA regional qualifying height in the event. Competing in the invitational pole vault, the St. Louis, Mo., native reached a height of 16 feet, 6 3/4 inches to finish third.
Another Badger that opened eyes in the field events was redshirting freshman Marcus Jenkins. Despite only competing in two meets this outdoor season, Jenkins has claimed victories in the long jump event during each effort. He landed a jump of 24 feet, 4 1/2 inches en route to claiming the long jump title on Saturday.
Other notable Badger performances in the running events came from Chas Demers and Maverick Darling. In the 200 meters, Demers earned a season-best time and placed first, finishing in 21.57 seconds. Competing as a redshirting freshman, Darling won the 3,000 meters with a time of 8:17.96.
Also Saturday, the McClimon Complex men's discus record was broken by unattached competitor Dan Hytinen, who shattered the previous record set back in 1986 by over two meters with his winning throw of 198 feet, 7 inches.
