Complete Track and Field Notes 
May 29, 2008
NORMAL, Ill. -
The Illinois State men's and women's track and field teams will send eight student-athletes, who have achieved regional qualification marks in their respective events, to the 2008 NCAA Mideast Region Track and Field Championships, which will be held in Fayetteville, Ark., and will be hosted by Arkansas on the John McDonnell Field Friday and Saturday.
The NCAA divides all of the Division I programs into four regions based on geographic location. Illinois State is a member of the highly competitive Mideast Region. Members in the Mideast region include this year's anticipated team to beat, Louisiana State as well as the No. 16 women and No. 7 men from Arkansas.
Illinois State head track and field coach Elvis Forde realizes the difficulty of the competition that his student-athletes will face and believes that they are prepared.
"We are sending eight athletes to one of the most difficult of the four regions that are established," said Forde. "Nevertheless, we are facing head-to-head competition, and we expect our athletes to realize this. This meet is a great opportunity to showcase our talents, since this is a time where we compete against the very best. I am looking forward to some very strong performances from our athletes."
The women's squad will send its State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor 4x100-meter relay championship squad of senior Anna Lovell, freshman Meaka Brents, senior Kyndra Curtin and senior Devon Williams. The quartet posted a season-best at the conference championships, where it crossed the finish line in 46.10 seconds. Senior Melissa Clarke with travel with the relay team and sever as an alternate.
Williams will also be competing individually in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, as well as in the 4x100. Williams is coming off a strong finish at the Valley Outdoor Championships, where she earned three titles. In the 100, she clocked her fastest performance of the season in the preliminaries, with a time of 11.57. Then in the 200, the Oswego, Ill., native ran a career-best 23.90 to win the event.
Junior Samantha Springer is competing in the hammer and discus throws. Springer holds a personal-best distance of 179-06 feet in the hammer throw, a mark that gave her the third-best throw in ISU history and places her at No. 5 on the Valley's season- best list. In the discus, the Tremont, Ill., native is No. 4 in the league standings (159-08). At the Valley Championships, she earned her first all-conference recognition after she took third in the discus, launching a distance of 150-05. Springer enters the Mideast Championships seeded 24th in the discus and 32nd in the hammer regionally.
On the men's side, senior Anton Walczak will compete in the hammer throw and senior Alex Straughn will hop, skip and jump his way to the finals of the triple jump.
"Alex competed at Nationals in the high jump last year, and this year, he is going to hang his hat in the triple jump," said Forde. "Alex has had a rough end to his senior season, as he has struggled with an ankle injury.
"Anton is in a competitive field. He is going have to throw well over 200 feet in the hammer throw, and we believe that he is capable of doing that."
The top-five finishers in each event automatically gain entry into the NCAA National Track and Field Championship. The national championship field will also include 12 at-large bids to fill in each event. The athletes that will be selected to fill these slots are those that are at the top of the national order list, provided that they compete at the regional meet.
"I think that this year's championship events are going to be special because a lot of the athletes competing are going to try to get qualifying times in order to represent their country in the Olympic Games (Aug. 15-24 in Beijing)." Said Forde. "I think that it is going to be an outstanding national meet this year, but to get there, it is going to take a good effort from our athletes at the regional meet."
The NCAA Mideast Regional is slated to begin at 11 a.m., Friday with the women's hammer throw.
