Pick 10: Big Ten and USA Indoor Championships

Track and field is heating up on the indoor circuit. A championship weekend is coming up for both the Big Ten and USA Indoor Championships. Pick Ten will make its first appearance in 2011 to follow many of the top Minnesota athletes competing this weekend.

USA Indoor Championships will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Saturday and Sunday. The Big Ten Indoor Championships will be held in two locations, one for each gender. The women will travel to Purdue and the men will compete at Illinois. Both meets will also occur on Saturday and Sunday.

Pick Ten has a simple concept: predict the finish place for each of 10 Minnesota athletes/teams at the USA Champs/Big Ten meets. You will score points for each athlete who scores at or above the finish place you predict for them, following the 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring system.

For example: If you pick Zach Mellon to place first in the Big Ten 800-meters, and he places first, you get 10 points. If you pick Mellon to place first and he finishes second, you get zero points. If you pick Mellon to finish third in the race and he places first, second or third, you get 6 points, since you that's the place you picked him for.

To play Pick Ten, cut and paste the list of names/events below into an e-mail and add your place predictions -- 1st or 2nd or 3rd...8th. Send your predictions by 10:00 A.M. CST on Saturday, February 26th to DtBFantasy [AT] gmail [DOT] com. Make sure your full name is in the e-mail. As with our Yes/No contests, we don't offer any prizes, so no one needs to fear running afoul of NCAA or other anti-gambling regulations. (The glory you could capture by winning, however, is immeasurable!)

We'll announce the winner of this week's contest and compile results of all of the year's Pick Ten contests to name a grand champion for 2011.

Pick 10 ... Big Ten and USA Indoor Track and Field Championships:

Garrett Heath - USA Mile:

Jim Dilling - USA High Jump:

Heather Kampf - USA 800:

Gabriele Anderson - USA Mile:

Amanda Smock - USA Triple Jump:

Zach Mellon - Big Ten 800:

Brock Spandl - Big Ten Pole Vault:

Joey Schwecke - Big Ten Heptathlon:

Chimerem Okoroji - Big Ten 60 meters:

Jordan Helgren - Big Ten Triple Jump:

To Help You Make Your Picks ...

Finalized entries and heat sheets for these meets were not posted at press-time Thursday morning. However, we suggest you check the meet websites on Friday for updated information:

Big Ten - Men,
Big Ten - Women
USA Indoor

We offer the following information, but caution that it comes strictly from Big Ten performance lists and USA Indoor list of declared athletes -- not final seedings and heat sheets.

Garrett Heath has the fastest seed time in the mile by about 2.5 seconds. Heath has run 3:55.87 indoors this year. Jim Dilling is currently ranked third among declared athletes in the high jump. The Minnesota State - Mankato alum has a seed height of 7-4 1/4.

Heather Kampf is currently ranked fourth in the 800 with a time of 2:05.31. She is also currently entered in the mile. Speaking of the mile, that's where Kampf's former University of Minnesota teammate and current Team USA Minnesota teammate Gabrielle Anderson will be competing in her specialty. Anderson has the fourth fastest indoor mile time going into the meet. Amanda Smock is ranked third among triple jumpers this year. Smock has jumped 43-11 3/4 this year.

Wisconsin's Zach Mellon will bring his NCAA automatic qualifying 1:47.87 800 time to the Big Ten Championship this year. Mellon, a Buffalo High School graduate, is ranked #2 in the 800 currently. The Gophers' Brock Spandl has the second highest pole vault in the Big Ten behind his teammate Ben Peterson. The U of M senior has scaled 17-3 in 2011. Joey Schwecke of the U of M is currently ranked #4 in the Heptathlon with his 5551 effort at Iowa State in January.

Gopher Chimerem Okoroji is looking to better her current #5 ranking among 60 meter participants. The junior ran a personal best at the Jack Johnson meet in January. Wayzata alumnus Jordan Helgren of Wisconsin sits at #3 on the Triple Jump list. She jumped 40-4 in early February.

Good luck!

The fantasy contest question from last week was: "Yes/No: Will three or more women vault 13-6 or higher at the Parents' Day Open?" The answer was no. Samantha Sonnenberg vaulted 13-11 1/4, but no one else got over 13-6. Twenty five players answered correctly last week, led by overall leader Chris Rivers. Rivers is perfect on the year and followed closely by eleven contestants with three points.

The 2010 Pick Ten contest was won by Mike Henderson. The rest of the 2010 top-5 included Jesse Schoen, Mitch VanBruggen, Rachel Karel and Ben Weihrauch

For full standings of both contests, please visit DtB Fantasy Corner.