Earlier this month, university leaders renamed a prominent thoroughfare on campus the Wes Kittley Drive of Champions.
The Texas Tech track and field coach wasted no time putting more evidence behind the new name.
Competing over three days in Tucson, Arizona, the Tech women’s and men’s teams won the Big 12 outdoor championships that concluded on Saturday, May 16. It’s the second year in a row the Red Raiders have swept the women’s and men’s titles at the conference indoor and outdoor meets.
“To be able to do that when you’re having ups and downs with injuries and that type thing, you’re just really always very fortunate,” Kittley said. “I tell people all the time, this meet is hard to win. I think people think we’ve won a lot so it’s just easy, but it definitely is not. It’s one of the hardest meets to win.”
The Tech men have won the Big 12 outdoor meet seven times and the Big 12 indoor meet six times. The two Big 12 championships last year and two this year are the first track titles for the women’s program, which has also won three in cross country.
The Tech men outpointed host Arizona 127 points to 101 in the meet at Drachman Stadium. The Tech women scored 119 1/2 points to Brigham Young’s 108. Neither Tech team was necessarily favored going into the meet. The Kansas State men were ranked No. 12 and Tech No. 13. The BYU women were ranked No. 4 and Tech No. 8. Going into the conference indoor meet in Lubbock, both Tech teams also were second in the field in terms of national ranking.
On Saturday, BYU racked up 22 points in the next-to-last women’s event, the 5,000 meters, to narrow the gap to 109 1/2 to 108. However, the Tech 1,600-meter relay went into the meet ranked No. 1 in the Big 12 and No. 11 in NCAA Division I this season.
They won, as expected, to nail down the title. The lineup of Collinique Farrington, Mekenze Kelley, Vanessa Balde, Lovina Ewusi ran a season-best time of 3 minutes, 28.05 seconds.
Tech got individual titles on the women’s side from Tonie-Ann Forbes in the 100-meter hurdles, Temitope Adeshina in the high jump and Tamiah Washington in the triple jump. They scored 14 points in the 400-meter hurdles with Balde and Ewusi finishing second and third.
Adeshina’s a six-time Big 12 high jump champion, having won the indoor and outdoor meets in each of her three college seasons. This time, she cleared 6 feet, 4 1/4 inches.
Forbes ran a wind-assisted 12.75 seconds, adding the 100 hurdles title to the 60-meter hurdles crown she won at the Big 12 indoor meet in Lubbock.
Washington’s triple-jump mark of 44-4 3/4 was good for her second career Big 12 title after she won the 2025 indoor.
“(The women) were just down, big time, 30 or 40 points,” Kittley said, “and we just dug ourselves out event by event by event. Then went into the 4-by-4 (relay leading by) 1 1/2 points, so to finish it off with the 4-by-4 like that was special.”
On the men’s side, Titus Kimaru delivered 16 points with a first-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (8:32.85) on Friday and a third in the 5,000 meters (13:52.17) on Saturday. Malachi Snow was the Red Raiders’ only other individual winner, taking the 110-meter hurdles in a wind-assisted 13.08. He won the indoor 60 hurdles title in 2025.
As has often been the case, the key to the Red Raiders’ title was production across the board. The men’s team scored in 17 of 21 events. They got second-place points from Zaid Latif in the long jump (wind-legal 26-4 1/4), Jonathan Seremes in the triple jump (wind-legal 56-1), Sam Hurley in the high jump (7-2 1/2) and Brian Tinega in the 400 meters (45.25).
“I felt like in the middle of the meet Brian Tinega getting second in the 400 out of lane 9 kind of sparked us and got everybody more excited again on the men’s side,” Kittley said. “Everybody just started running better, I felt, so it gave us a spark.”
Next on Tech’s schedule is the NCAA West regional May 27-30 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech track and field teams add to streak of Big 12 title sweeps
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
