May 30, 2002

BATON ROUGE, La. - The men's 1,600-meter relay turned in a season best time of 3:05.11 and finished second in their heat to qualify for Sunday's final at the 2002 NCAA Championships in Baton Rouge, La.

Running the lead leg for the 1,600 relay was freshman Albert Booker who ran a 46.67 split before giving way to Julieon Raeburn. The former Olympian exploded around the second turn and gave Tech a 15 meter lead as he ran a split time of 45.57. The Red Raiders looked to be cruising until the second exchange.

The exchange was not a clean one and Ivory McCann did not get as good of a start as he should have. The freshman managed a split time of 46.60 but was second to hand off the stick. Jonathan Johnson ran the second fastest leg of the relay at 45.90 and managed to hold the lead for a few meters but the team from Tennessee was too much and Tech will enter Sunday's final as the fourth seeded team.

The women's 4x400 relay did not fair as well.

Without LaDonna Begelton as a leg the team was forced to shuffle its order and put D'Andria Brigham in her place. Rachelle Evans ran the lead leg for Tech before handing off to Brigham who was running on the relay for the first time this season. She was not able to keep up with the pack. The final two legs of Melonie Barrow and Licretia Sibley were not able to close the gap as Tech did not qualify for the finals.

Booker ran in the second of the three events he was scheduled to compete in this weekend, the 400-meter dash. His time of 46.23 was fourth in his heat, while junior Julieon Raeburn was fifth in his heat with a time of 47.27. Neither time was fast enough to earn a spot in Saturday's finals.

Senior Monique Wright-Cruse competed in the 100-meter dash, the last chance for her to earn All-American honors. The three-time letterman was one of two Red Raiders to compete in the preliminaries where the top three heat times would automatically advance with the next best seven times to the semifinals on Friday.

Running in the first heat, Wright-Cruse raced to a prelim time of 11.67 as she finished 6th, and was the final person to qualify for the semifinals extending her career by at least one more day.

Tech would have a second athlete race in the 100, sophomore Tiffany Green. Green came into the championships with the eighth fastest time and ran in the final heat of the day. Her time of 11.48 was the fourth fastest in her heat and will join Wright-Cruse in Friday's race.

Tech will have four athletes compete tomorrow as Jonathan Johnson will look to prove that his second seed in the 800 is no fluke at 8:00 p.m., while Jason Young will compete in the discus at 4:00 p.m. as the events fifth ranked thrower. Wright-Cruse and Green will both compete in the 100 semifinals set to begin at 7:50 p.m. rounding out the Red Raider's participation on the next-to-last day of the NCAA Championships.