Men's and Women's Outdoor Track Sending 10 Student-Athletes to NCAA Outdoors
MEN'S QUALIFIERS | WOMEN'S QUALIFIERS
St. Louis, Mo., May 22, 2011 — The Washington University in St. Louis men’s and women’s outdoor track and field teams combined to qualify 10 student-athletes for the 2011 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships it was announced Sunday afternoon by the NCAA Track & Field selection committee.
The Bears are sending four women and six men to this year’s championship, to be hosted Thursday-Saturday, May 26-28, on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Washington University’s 10 student-athletes will compete in 11 total events with four declaring for two events.
Junior Liz Phillips will take aim at earning individual All-America honors for the first time in her career as she runs in the women’s 800-meter and 1,500-meter. She qualified for the 1,500 with a school-record breaking NCAA automatic qualifying time of 4:28.10, which seeds her fourth at the championship, and she ranks sixth in the 800 with a season-best provisional time of 2:11.09, also a school record.
The Washington University men’s team has three student-athletes who will be pulling double duty at the championship. Senior Ben Harmon is a five-time All-American and will compete in the decathlon and long jump. His automatic decathlon qualifying score of 6,763 ranks third at the championship while his season-best provisional long jump distance of 7.13 meters makes him the 16th seed.
Harmon earned All-America honors in the decathlon in 2008 (fifth) and 2009 (fourth) and finished eighth in the long jump at this year’s NCAA Indoor Championship, garnering All-America accolades in the event for the first time.
Washington University’s distance specialists in senior Dave Spandorfer and junior Michael Burnstein will run in the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter races. Spandorfer set school records with his provisional qualifying marks of 14:27.76 in the 5,000 and 30:10.47 in the 10,000, and is seeded 11th and sixth in the two races respectively.
Burnstein ranks 20th in the 5,000-meter with his qualifying time of 14:36.35, and 18th in the 10,000 with a mark of 30:43.32. He was an All-American in the 10,000 last year with a seventh-place finish while Spandorfer is looking to earn his first All-America finish.
The Bears will field two runners in the men’s 110-meter hurdles in juniors Dan Davis and Tyler Jackson. Davis automatically qualified for the 2011 championship with a school-record breaking time of 14.28, which ranks second in the country, while Jackson’s provisional mark of 14.42 was just 0.01 shy of the automatic standard and ranks fifth nationally. Both earned All-America honors in the 55-hurdles at this year’s indoor championship, with Davis placing second and Jackson seventh.
Freshman Shannon Howell will run in the 400-meter hurdles, qualifying for the meet with a provisional mark of 1:02.14, which makes her the 13th seed headed into the championship. Classmate Sarah Fisher is also a first-time NCAA qualifier. She broke the school record with her provisional qualifying run of 10:47.43 in the 3,000-steeplechase, making her the 13th seed at the NCAA meet.
The third freshman qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the WUSTL women is pole vaulter Anna Etherington, whose season-best height of 3.56 meters ranks 17th overall.
Senior Alden Black will represent Washington University in the men’s 3,000-steeplechase. He shattered the school record with his automatic time of 8:57.10 and is seeded second in the race.
The Washington University men’s team earned a program-best eighth place finish at the 2011 NCAA Indoor Championships while the women’s team finished 27th.