Thomas, Matthews Set Season-Bests at NCAA Championships

May 31, 2002

BATON ROUGE, LA – The Clemson men’s track and field team competed in the second day of the 2002 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday night. The Tigers’ Dwight Thomas and Todd Matthews advanced to the semifinals of their events.

Thomas competed in the preliminaries of the 100m dash, recording a time of 10.18. He finished first in his heat and qualified for Saturday’s semifinals with the second-fastest time in the field. His qualifying time is the fastest time he has posted this season and places him fifth on Clemson’s all-time list for the event. Thomas will also compete in the finals of the 200m dash on Saturday.

The Tigers’ Todd Matthews recorded his fastest time of the season in the 110m hurdles. Matthews posted a time of 13.59, finishing first in his heat. That mark was the second-fastest recorded in Thursday’s preliminaries, and is only two-hundredths of a second off his career best time of 13.57. Matthews will compete in the semifinals of the event on Saturday.

Clemson’s 4x400m relay team of Jacey Harper, Rick Hill, Otto Spain and Ato Modibo finished sixth in their heat with a time of 3:06.30. Modibo also competed in the 400m dash, finishing fourth in his heat with a time of 46.25.

Thomas, Matthews and the Tigers’ 4x100m relay team will compete in the finals of their events Friday evening.