Illinois senior sprinter Andrew Riley competed at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Nampa, Idaho, this past weekend, where he contended for two national titles. By the time he was done, he would single-handedly accomplish a feat that no individual, let alone team, has done at Illinois since 1995.

Riley entered last weekend’s championships having already won an indoor national title in the 60-meter hurdles in 2011. In addition to his title defense in the 60 hurdles, Riley also qualified for this year’s 60 meters, marking the first time he’d ever competed for both titles and making him the first Illini to have an opportunity at the 60-meters title since 1965.

“The season is so long, and some of the young people want immediate success,” Riley’s sprint coach and Illinois women’s track and field head coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said. “So sometimes you have to slow things down, and you can see in his career he has gotten better each year, each season. That’s a gift, because a lot of athletes don’t have that.”

In the 60 hurdles finals, Riley got slightly out of rhythm over one of the hurdles, which was enough to prevent him from defending his title. He finished the race in 7.58 seconds, four-hundredths of a second behind the winner, Jarret Eaton from Syracuse.

“The hurdles are what I train for, and it was hard to see that I came off the last hurdle pretty awkward,” Riley said. “It put me in fourth place.”

Riley has been one of the premier hurdlers in the nation during his college career. He’s a two-time national champion, once in the 60 hurdles and once in the 110-meter hurdles outdoors, and an eight-time Big Ten champion, including four times in the 60 hurdles and once in the 60. His previous successes made him one of the favorites in the finals; thus, his fourth-place finish was disappointing.

“(Illinois men’s track and field head coach Mike Turk) told me I’m Andrew Riley, so I don’t need to hang my head. It’s just one disappointment.” Riley said. “I had one more event to channel all that energy and that frustration; unfortunately, I didn’t win, but I came close.

There was not much time for Riley to stay hung up on his hurdles race. Forty minutes after the hurdles, he had to return to the track to compete in the 60 meters.

“Coming in to this year I said I wanted to do something different,” Riley said. “I won two national titles already, but I want to do something different and put me in an elite class. I thought about it, and I said I wanted to win the 60 dash at the Big Tens and hopefully go to nationals and give it a shot. I knew I could have won it.”

Riley finished second in the event, one-hundredth of a second away from winning his third national title. His second- and fourth-place finishes at the NCAA Indoor Championships may have been disappointing for him on a personal level, but his finishes in the two events scored the Illini 13 team points, the highest total the team has had in the national tournament since 1995.

Next up for Riley is his final season in an Illini uniform — Illinois’ outdoor schedule begins March 23 at the SEC vs. Big Ten Challenge in Starkville, Miss.

“I’m definitely going in to outdoors to win the 100 at Big Tens,” Riley said. “If I do good, who knows, I just want to do something different than I always do. I want to put myself somewhere that no hurdler has ever been before.”

Perhaps bigger than Riley’s chance at two more national titles in the outdoor season is his opportunity to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics for his native Jamaica.

“This year is a big year. I really want to make the Olympic team,” Riley said. “Last year, I made the World Championship team, and that was a great experience. I learned a lot. This year is my last year, and I’ve always wanted to be on an Olympic team, so I’m just working hard and preparing myself mentally to go to the trials.”

Riley has already had an impressive college career. Now, his hope is to move on to the professional level.

“The main thing right now is to stay healthy,” Riley said. “Once I stay healthy, I can expect anything down the road.”