Gopher Men Finish Fifth in Big Ten Indoor Championships

Junior Ibrahim Kabia placed second in the 60-meter dash with a season-best and NCAA provisional qualifying time of 6.67 seconds to highlight the Minnesota men’s track team’s fifth-place finish at the 2008 Big Ten Men’s Indoor Track & Field Championships in Madison. The Gophers collected 77 points over the two-day event.

Wisconsin won its eighth consecutive Big Ten title with 127 points. Purdue finished second with 102, followed by Ohio State with 82, Penn State with 79 and Minnesota.

True freshman Hassan Mead’s second place finish in the 5K in 14:26.63 broke up a Badger sweep of the top five places. Mead was third in the 3,000 meters (8:11.73) on Saturday. Chris Rombough finished sixth in 14:34.06 and Mike Torchia eighth in 14:35.02.

Minnesota had three scorers in the heptathlon: Brock Spandl in fourth (5,283 points), R.J. McGinnis in fifth (5,276) and David Meissner in eighth (5,142). Spandl and McGinnis fell just short of the NCAA provisional qualifying standard of 5,300 points. Spandl’s score betters his own Minnesota freshman record.

Sophomore Logan Stroman contributed a seventh-place finish in the 600-meter dash with a season-best time of 1:19.91. Redshirt freshman David Pachuta also scored a seventh-place finish in the 800-meter run in 1:54.10.

Aaron Studt, a sophomore, led the Gophers in the field events with a fifth-place finish in the weight throw. Studt’s heave of 65' 4.75" is an NCAA provisional qualifier and ties for the third-best effort in school history. Matt Fisher added a sixth-place finish in the high jump clearing a height of 6' 9.75".

For full meet results, click here.