MM 5.16: Maryland track and field gears up for Big Ten Championships

This is a Maryland Minute, a short story followed by a roundup of Terps-related news.

Maryland men’s and women’s track and field arrived in Eugene, Oregon, on Thursday in preparation for the Big Ten Championships at historic Hayward Field. It’s been a strong season for the Terps, who have set six school records in the last three weeks and now have the chance to earn some individual and team honors.

At the Penn Relays, the men’s distance medley relay team (9:39.29), the women’s 4x400m relay team (3:35.38) and both the men’s (7:27.07) and women’s (8:42.42) 4x800m relay teams set new school bests while finishing with top-10 overall times at the meet.

Maryland hosted the Kehoe Twilight Meet on May 2 as its final tune-up before the postseason. There, Chioma Njoku set a new personal best and Maryland record in the women’s hammer with a throw of 65.37m, with the women’s 4x100m relay team also setting a program record of 45.02 seconds.

Njoku, whose mark in the hammer is fourth-best in the conference, is one of several Maryland athletes poised to potentially take home individual Big Ten honors. Morgan Graham (54.63m) has the fourth-best mark in the women’s discus, Maya Valmon (52.50) has the eighth-best time in the women’s 400m, and Eric Albright (1:47.32) has the fifth-best time in the men’s 800m.

The Terps also enter Eugene with top-10 seed times in both the 4x100m men’s and women’s relays and the women’s 4x400m relay. The men’s 4x400m relay is ranked 12th.

The championship meet begins at 3:00 p.m. EST Friday and will pick back up at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, with the specific order of events found here. All three days’ events will be available to stream on Big Ten Plus.

In other news

Maryland selected Jim Smith as its new athletic director. Matt Germack had the story.

Maryland baseball is in “Game 7” mentality against Rutgers this weekend. Christian Andriolas previewed the series and recapped Thursday’s series-opening loss.

In Thursday’s game, Chris Hacopian hit his 100th career RBI for Maryland baseball.

Former Maryland wide receiver Tai Felton was spotlighted in the newest episode of Maryland football’s UNLOCKED docuseries.

Former Maryland pitcher Logan Berrier joined the Detroit Tigers organization.

Maryland tennis saw three athletes — Danielle Hack, Kallista Liu and Tamari Gagoshidze — named CSC Academic All-District.