NCAA Track & Field Championships

[goshox74]

The NCAA Track and Field Championships begin this weekend for the Shockers in Eugene, Oregon. The meet runs Thursday-Saturday in "Tracktown, USA" - site of next year's Olympic Trials.

The top 48 athletes in both the Western and Eastern halves of the country are sent to their respective "preliminaries" (East goes to Indiana) with the top-12 in each event advancing through to the "NCAA Finals" two weeks later in Des Moines.

Here are the Lady Shockers qualified for this weekend and their current rankings:
La'Taish Brown - Long Jump #27
Audacia Moore - 100m #22, 200 #21, Triple Jump #48
Natalie Morerod - 400 hurdles #42
Tonya Nero - 10,000m #2
Alilphine Tuliamuk - 5000m #7, 10,000m #6
4x100 relay (Williams, Moore, Hallman, Pruitt) #24

Here's a link to all the qualifiers: http://www.ustfccca.org/weekly-resul...or-track-field

Obviously Nero is not only one of the favorites to advance to the finals but a national champion contender in the 10k. Tuliamuk has chosen to try the tough 5k/10k double so that doubles her chances of advancing. The others will need to improve on their seeding but Brown will have a good shot - she's been a little bit injured during the outdoor season and was a NCAA qualifier indoors. The sprints are all very close so if Moore has a good meet she could advance as well.

Good luck to all the ladies as they begin their NCAA journeys!

[1972Shocker]

La'Taish Brown fouled on her 1st attempt in the long jump, had a poor jump on her second attempt and then hit a decent jump of 19' 2.5" which put her at #23 after the preliminary rounds and she did not advance to the regional finals.

La'Taish is capable of going 20'+ but wasn't able to get that done today as she closes out a very fine Shocker career. La'Taish is the WSU record holder with a jump of 20' 10.5" but her best this year was 19' 11.75".

[1972Shocker]

Natalie Morerod finished 47th in the 400M hurdles. Not totally unexpected and it should prove to be a valuable experience for the Frehsman from Gardner, KS.

My guess is Coach Rainbolt is delighted with Natalie's Freshman performance.

[1972Shocker]

Audacia Moore runs an 11.73 in the 100M dash to finish 22nd and just makes it into the quarterfinal round tomorrow.

Good luck, Audacia!

[1972Shocker]

Good news! Tonya Nero wins the 10K in 33:24.12 and Aliphine Tuliamuk finishes 5th in 33:32.11.

Both ladies advance to the NCAA Finals at Drake.

:yahoo: :goshocks: :clap:

[goshox74]

Great race for those 10k ladies, and with beating the #1 ranked girl in the nation, I gotta imagine Tonya will be considered the favorite to win in Des Moines in 2 weeks.

Exciting stuff!!!

[1972Shocker]

Interesting tidbit: On the Women's side 17 of the Nation's top 25 ranked teams are represented in the West regional. Only 8 of the top 25 teams are in the East regional. So the Shocks aren't exactly competing against chopped liver.

As with the men Texas A&M is ranked #1 so the Aggies take their Track and Field seriously.

[1972Shocker]

Great race for those 10k ladies, and with beating the #1 ranked girl in the nation, I gotta imagine Tonya will be considered the favorite to win in Des Moines in 2 weeks.

Exciting stuff!!!

goshox74, do you know how many, if any, track and field national champions Wichita State has produced?

Edit: I think I found my answer. It looks like Harold Manning won the 2-mile run at the 1936 NCAA Championships and Einars Tupuritis was a 2-time National Champ in the 800M run. So this is indeed very rarified air Tonya is sniffing.

[ABC]

Thank you very much for the update and info!

[goshox74]

'72,

That sounds about right and it's probably worth mentioning no female has ever won a national championship. There have been a few that were close like Desiraye Osburn and Jackie Brown a few years back along with the most recent one being Kellyn Johnson's 3rd place finish in '09.

[1972Shocker]

SIU and ILS representing the MVC very well in the Women's Hammer Throw. After the 1st 2 throws SIU throwers hold down 1st and 5th and the ILS thrower sits in 8th.

:good:

[1972Shocker]

Amanda Bingson of UNLV fouled on 3 of her 6 throws but pulled out a 222'-10" hammer throw on her 5th attempt to move past SIU's Jeneva McCall who had put up a 214'5" throw on her 2nd attempt. On her 6th and final attempt McCall went 220'-7" to fall just short.

Still SIU's McCall finished 2nd, SIU's Gwen Berry took 4th and ILS's Brittany Smith finished 10th to advance to the NCAA Finals at Drake.

UNLV took 1st and 3rd in this event.

[WuDrWu]

'72, are you following online or is it on TV somewhere?

[1972Shocker]

'72, are you following online or is it on TV somewhere?

I'm following live results online at:

http://www.flashresults.com/2011_Meets/outdoor/05-26-NCAAWest/Standings36-1.htm

The do a good job keeping the results fairly current.

Audacia competing in the triple jump right now but has fouled on her first two attempts. She has one more attempt to try and get into the top 16 to advance. This is really not her event so I think that's a long shot.

Missouri State triple-jumpers are currently in 2nd and 7th but there is a lot of jumping left.

[1972Shocker]

Audacia did get off a 37' effort on her 3rd attempt to move into 24th place but that won't be good enough to make the top 16 for 3 more attempts.

Edit: I thought something looked odd with those standings earlier. Audacia's effort was only good enough for 46th. Probably should have passed on this event and saved her energy for the 100M and 200M dashes which are her strongest events.