May 21, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -
A total of 15 Illinois State track team members have qualified for the NCAA West Regional, scheduled to take place May 27-29 at Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. The meet is one of two preliminary meets in which athletes will compete for a spot at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
The women's team will send a large group to the West Regional and several of those student-athletes will be competing in multiple events. Freshman thrower Brittany Smith has qualified to compete in the shot put, hammer throw and discus events and ranks in the top-15 in the region in each event. Smith heads in ranked 11th in the shot put (52'05.25") and the discus (170'02") and holds the 13th-best mark in the region (193'09") in the hammer throw. Smith will be joined in the shot put competition by sophomore Tori Ziegler, who heads into the meet ranked 28th with a distance of 49'05.75".
Leigh Petranoff, the two-time defending Missouri Valley Conference champion in the javelin, and junior Amanda Albrecht round out a strong group of field competitors for the Redbirds. The sophomore heads into the meet ranked 16th in the region with a school-record mark of 162'00", which she set last weekend at the conference championship in a winning effort. Albrecht heads into the regional with a personal-best mark of 5'07.25", which places her 44th.
On the track, sophomore Aisha Praught headlines a strong group of runners for ISU. Praught has qualified to compete in both the 1,500-meter run with a mark of 4:29.85 and in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 10:37.98. The trio of freshman Sade Sealy, sophomore Meaka Brents and junior Tia Harvey will also compete in two events each. Sealy, who swept the 400-meter titles in both the indoor and outdoor seasons in the Valley in 2010, is ranked 24th in the region with a time of 53.75 in the 400-meter dash. Brents (24.35) and Harvey (24.41) have both qualified to compete in the 200-meter dash and the trio will join with sophomore Alia McAfee to form the 4x100-meter dash team that won the Valley title at the outdoor championships last weekend.
MVC outdoor champion in the javelin, Tim Glover, will look to make the NCAA Championships in his first season as a collegiate student-athlete and leads a strong group of ISU men into the regional. The freshman from Normal, Ill., heads into the meet ranked 11th with a toss of 233'11", which he set at the 2010 MVC Outdoor Championships last weekend. Fellow freshman Curtis Jensen will join Glover in the throws competition, after he qualified to compete in the shot put with a mark of 55'07.50". Sophomore Drew Holl will round of the field competitors in the high jump with his career-best mark of 6'10.25".
Junior Scott Krapf will lead a trio of Redbirds in the running events, as he heads into the regional ranked 40th in the 10,000-meter run with a time of 29:32.90 set at the Stanford Invitational on March 26. Fellow junior Jon Roberts will compete in the 3,000-meter steeplechase event, with his career-best time of 8:58.07 placing him 29th overall in the region. Rounding out the field for ISU will be sophomore Kayode Adegoke, who qualified to compete in the 200-meter dash with his personal-best time of 21.28.
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