Rutgers' Emeka Eze Wins Big Ten Long Jump Title
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Rutgers has another Big Ten Track and Field champion as junior Emeka Eze (Sayreville, N.J.) won the long jump title at the 2015 Big Ten Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Saturday.
Additionally, sophomore Jermaine Griffith (Hamilton, N.J.) and senior D'Andre Jordan (Brooklyn, N.Y.) advanced to the finals of the 400m.
Eze reached the winning distance of 7.55m (24' 9 ¼") on his second jump and remained atop the standings through finals.
The mark was a season best for Eze by .42m , who missed much of the outdoor season with injury and returned to competition at Penn Relays in late April.
The junior Scarlet Knight's late season performance is reminiscent of last outdoor season when Eze parlayed his eighth place performance at the American Athletic Conference Championships into a stellar showing at the IC4A Championships. At the 2014 IC4A Outdoor Championships, Eze took second place in shattering his personal best by .40m by leaping to 7.65m (25' 1 ¼") and would advance to the NCAA Regionals.
In the 400m, both Griffith and Jordan finished in the top eight and collected new personal bests to advance to Sunday'sfinal. Griffith placed fourth in the preliminaries at 46.85, besting his previous PR of 47.08 at the Tennessee Challenge earlier this month. Jordan ran to a time of 47.08 to finish eighth in preliminaries and bettered his previous PR of 47.34 set at last season's American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships.
The Big Ten Network will air tape delay coverage of Sunday'schampionship events on May 24 at 11 a.m. ET.
Competition at the 2015 Big Ten Outdoor Track & Field Championships wraps up tomorrow at Michigan State's Ralph Young Track and Field Facility. Live results are available here.
BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIPS RESULTS (thru day two)
100m
20. Rajee Dunbar -- 10.90
22. Stuart Tweedie -- 11.00
200m
16. Rajee Dunbar -- 21.67
17. D'Andre Jordan -- 21.83
24. Jordan Jimerson -- 22.35
25. Stuart Tweedie -- 25.22
400m Preliminaries
4. Jermaine Griffith -- 46.85 *
8. D'Andre Jordan -- 47.08 *
24. Jordan Jimerson -- 49.21
* - advances to finals on Sunday
800m
23. Brendan Jaeger -- 1:53.14
1500m
26. Luke Wiley -- 3:55.69
32. Christopher DeFabio -- 4:04.01
400m Hurdles
10. Kyle Holder -- 52.92
Long Jump
1. Emeka Eze -- 7.55m (24' 9 ¼")
Decathlon
18. Dylan Altland - 6057 pts.