Tennessee sprinters take big strides

BATON ROUGE, La., May 29 (UPI) -- Tennessee sprinters, led by Justin Gatlin, helped the Volunteers take a big first step in the direction of the national title Wednesday night and Andras Haklits of Georgia won the hammer throw for the third time to highlight the opening evening of action at the NCAA Track and Field Championships.

Only two men's and three women's finals were conducted on the campus of LSU and the biggest moments came in preliminary events.

Gatlin and teammate Leonard Scott turned in the top two times in advancing to the finals of the 200-meter dash and the Tennessee sprint relay team survived a bad pass to also make it to Saturday's finals.

Tennessee's cause was further helped when both Mississippi State and Texas Christian, expected to challenge the Volunteers in the sprint relay, dropped the baton and were disqualified.

The defending champion Volunteers are among the pre-meet favorites and the success of their sprinters Wednesday night was critical for those title hopes.

Haklits, meanwhile, opened the four-day meet by capturing the hammer throw with a heave of 253-8. The Croatian, who has claimed NCAA titles for both Louisiana-Monroe and Georgia, won the event on his last throw to edge SMU's Libor Charfreitag.

The only other men's final Wednesday night was won by LSU's Walter Davis in the long jump with a leap of 26-6 1/4.

Georgia emerged from the opening night with the lead in the team race with 15 points while LSU had 11.

In women's action, UCLA took the early lead with 15 points thanks chiefly to a victory by Tracy O'Hara in the pole vault. Jamine Moton of Clemson won the women's hammer throw and Kristin Price of North Carolina State captured the 10,000-meter run by seven seconds over Tara Quinn of South Florida.

The best showings in preliminary action were turned in by Otukile Lekote of South Carolina in the men's 800 (1:46.49), freshman Bennie Brazell of LSU in the men's 400 hurdles (49.57), Daniel Lincoln of Arkansas in the 3,000 steeplechase (8:36.50), Tyrona Heath of Georgetown in the women's 800 (2:03.81), Leshinda Demus of South Carolina in the women's 400 hurdles (56.39) and Muna Lee of LSU in the women's 200 (22.66).

After the first four events of the heptathlon, the lead was owned by Austra Skujyte of Kansas State with 3,592 points. Katherine Livesey of Nebraska was second, 112 points behind.