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Competition begins on Thursday at the 2009 NAIA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships, held on the campus of Southern Illnois University in Edwardsville. Eighteen athletes will be representing Wayland Baptist at the event.

The eight Pioneer women will be looking to successfully defend their national title from a year ago, while the ten men are hoping to put themselves back among the top ten for the first time in four years.

Last year the Wayland women's team used ten athletes to score 80 points in winning the first outdoor championship in school history, defeating runner-up Simon Fraser by 11 points. This year, Pioneer head coach Brian Whitlock believes Azusa Pacific, which has 15 athletes competing, will be the biggest threat to his team's repeat.

"Azusa has a lot of good athletes and we just barely beat them in indoors. If everything falls as it should, though, we'll be hard to beat."

The Pioneers possess the number one seed in five of the 11 events in which they are competing. Sophomore Kimberly Smith won both the 100- and 200-meters a year ago, and has posted the top times in those events this spring, as well.

WBU is also favored to successfully defend its title in the 4x100-meter relay. Smith, Keliesha Ross and Latanya Nation ran on last year's team, and have been joined this spring by super freshman Bianca Grant, who will also compete in the 100-meters and the long jump.

Purity Biwott, a sophomore, is going into the weekend's meet with the leading times in both the 800- and 1500-meters, although she will be competing with the reigning national champion in the 800. She could have an easier go of it in the 1500 where her top time this spring is almost four seconds better than the closest competitor.

Biwott, Smith, Ross and freshman Leandria Lee make up the 4x400-meter relay team. The foursome enter the race with the NAIA's fourth-best time.

Sophomore Caroline Karunde has perhaps the most daunting task of the weekend. The indoor national champion in the 3000-meters is going to run in both the 5000- and 10,000-meters in Illinois. Karunde, who along with Biwott will be leaving Wayland after the championships in order to pursue careers in nursing at Texas Tech, has the second-best times in both the distance events this spring.

Whitlock and his assistant, Rohan Thompson, also hope to pick up points from Nation in the 100-meter hurdles, the long jump and the triple jump. The sophomore from Jamaica was fifth last year in the long jump, and placed third in the event at March's indoor championships. She was also the runner-up in the indoor 60-meter hurdles in March.

Ross, a junior, is a returning All-American in the 100- and 200-meters, and she will be running in both those events once again. Lee is also entered in the 200-meters, and senior Elva Petrosa will be competing in the 1500-meters.

The first running event of the championships is the trials of the women's 4x100-meter relays which is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Thursday.

A 2008 All-American in the 1500-meters, Kirby Dunn will be competing at this weekend's national meet as the top seed in the 800-meters. His main competition will be from fellow Sooner Athletic Conference members from Oklahoma Christian and Oklahoma Baptist.

The men's 4x100-meter relay team should also pick up some major points. Some combination of freshmen Jerry-Lee Davis, Lee Prevost and Stanley Smith, along with sophomore Caleb McLean and senior Dominic Palmer will run as the race's fourth seed.

Other top seeds for the Pioneer men are junior Jeff Coleman in the hammer throw, McLean in the 400-meters, and the 4x400-meter relay team.

Coleman set a new school record earlier in the spring in the hammer and is going into the national meet with the NAIA's fifth best mark. McLean has the seventh-best 400-meter time, and also is a part of the eighth-ranked 4x4 team, along with Smith, Mario Scott and Davis.

Palmer is set to compete in the 100- and 200-meters. Davis is also entered in the 200, as is Prevost, who will be attempting to score points in the triple jump as well.

Sophomore Bradley Sell is making his second appearance at nationals in the pole vault, and Brandon Mansfield will be joining Coleman in the hammer throw, which kicks off the men's field event competition on Thursday at 1p.m.

The meet concludes on Saturday evening with the 4x400-meter relays.

Click here for complete schedule.