Women's Track & Field Finishes in Fifth Place at NCAA Outdoors

MEN'S RESULTS | WOMEN'S RESULTS

Marietta, Ohio, May 23, 2009 – The Washington University women’s outdoor track and field team capped off the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships with its best finish in school history, coming in fifth overall with 28 points as the three-day meet drew to a close on Saturday, May 23, at the Don Drumm Stadium in Marietta, Ohio. With two All-America finishes, the WU men’s team tallied seven team points to come in a tie for 44th place.

The Washington U. women’s squad trailed Gustavus Adolphus College by six points heading into the final two events of the day, the 5,000-meter run and the 4x400-meter relay, and needed to score in both events to have a shot at cracking the top-five for the first time in school history.

Up first was sophomore Taryn Surtees who qualified for the 5,000 and delivered a sixth-place finish with a time of 17:24.12, adding three points to the Washington University total to leave the Bears just three points behind Gustavus Adolphus.

Both schools were represented in the 4x400-meter relay, and the Washington University squad of seniors Erika Wade, Alli Alberts, Krystyn Stöwe and Danielle Wadlington ran to a fourth-place finish with a WU season-best time of 3:48.28. Wadlington anchored the relay and took the baton in seventh place overall, but she powered her way to fourth and fell just 0.01 shy of Wheaton College’s third-place time. The Gustavus Adolphus 4x400 team came in eighth place meaning the Bears vaulted over them for fifth-place overall by a single point.

For Surtees, it was the second All-America finish of the meet, as she also finished third in the 10,000-meter run on Thursday, May 21. In her two years on the Danforth Campus she has already garnered five All-America citations, scoring twice in the distance medley relay at the NCAA Indoor Championships, and she was a 2008 NCAA Division III cross country All-American.

Washington University has an All-America 4x400 team for the first time since 2005 and just the second time in school history. Wadlington was also on the 2005 squad, which earned a second-place finish at the championship.
The 4x400 was the third event of the day for Wadlington and the second in which she achieved All-American status.

Earlier in the day she ran in the 400-meter hurdle finals, where she placed third with a time of 1:01.75. Saturday marked the first time in her career she earned All-America honors in the 400-hurdles, and she closes her career as a five-time All-American, including Saturday’s 4x400 race.

Wadlington also competed in the triple jump on Saturday, but did not qualify for the finals as she recorded a distance of 11.10 meters in the preliminaries.

Senior Tanner Coghill earned his second-straight All-America finish in the men’s 400-meter hurdles, where he came in seventh place with a time of 53.87. He earned the first All-America citation of his career in 2008, when he ran to an eighth-place finish in the 400-hurdles, only to improve on that position this year. He ends his four-year career on the Danforth Campus as a two-time All-America honoree, and the school record holder in the 400-hurdles (52.42). Coghill is the only student-athlete in Washington University history to become a two-time All-American in the 400-hurdles.

Junior Molly Schlamb was also in action for the WU women’s team on Saturday, competing in the 1,500-meter run finals. She came in 10th place out of 12 finalists with a time of 4:42.65. Schlamb was competing in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships as an individual for the first time in her career.

Alberts Takes Second in Heptathlon, Harmon Fourth in Decathlon

MEN'S RESULTS | WOMEN'S RESULTS

Marietta, Ohio, May 22, 2009 – The Washington University in St. Louis men’s and women’s outdoor track and field multi-event specialists completed a pair of impressive 2009 campaigns as senior Alli Alberts was the runner-up in the heptathlon and sophomore Ben Harmon placed fourth in the decathlon at the 2009 NCAA Division III Track and Field Championships on Friday, May 22, in Marietta, Ohio.

Alberts is the only student-athlete in Washington University history to garner an All-America finish in the heptathlon, and she has now accomplished the feat twice. Harmon becomes the first WU student-athlete to post back-to-back All-America performances in the decathlon since Dave Bolton in 1980 and 1981: Bolton won the decathlon individual national title in 1981.

Alberts had a stellar second day in the heptathlon, scoring more points than any of the other 19 competitors in the final three events. She finished with 4,853 points, falling just 27 points shy of her school record breaking performance at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Championships when she garnered the other All-America finish of her career, coming in sixth.

Scoring 2,174 points during just Friday’s events, Alberts vaulted from seventh place heading into the final day of competition to second place. She started the day with a 5.21-meter long jump, which tied her season-best performance in the event and was the fourth-best mark of all heptathlon competitors.

She went on to finish first out of the field of 20 in both the javelin and the 800-meter run. Her distance of 41.21 meters in the javelin broke the school record of 40.37 meters, which she set on March 27, 2009, and her 800 time of 2:16.91 easily eclipsed her previous personal record and was the second-best 800 time any WU student-athlete posted this year.

Ranked sixth out of 17 heading into Friday, Harmon managed to move up two spots on the second day of the decathlon to garner the second All-America finish of his career: he came in fifth place in the decathlon at the 2008 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships.

Harmon had two of his best events still to come on Friday, the pole vault and the 1,500-meter run, and he turned in outstanding performances in both. He bested all other decathletes by clearing 4.65 meters in the pole vault, shattering his previous personal record of 4.45 meters. Harmon ran a 4:36.23 in the 1,500, which stood as the fourth-best mark overall.

With a 10-event total of 6,811 points, Harmon finished just 269 behind the 2009 NCAA Champion Josh Lovell of Linfield College, and he improved on his NCAA automatic qualifying point total of 6,650 by 161 points.

Senior Danielle Wadlington was the only other Washington University student-athlete in action on Friday, as she ran in the 100-meter hurdle preliminaries. She finished with an impressive time of 14.65 but she fell just 0.14 seconds shy of the time needed to advance to Saturday afternoon’s finals.

With 14.0 points through two days of action, the Washington U. women’s team is currently ranked fifth in the team standings, while the men’s team is in a tie for 23rd place with Harmon’s five points from the decathlon.

Both WU squads will have competitors in action as the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Championships conclude on Saturday, May 23, in Marietta, Ohio. Senior Tanner Coghill will run in the men’s 400-meter hurdle finals, Wadlington will compete in the triple jump, 400-hurdles and 4x400-meter relay, Alberts is slated to compete in the high jump and 4x400 relay, junior Molly Schlamb will run in the women’s 1,500-meter finals, sophomore Taryn Surtees will race in the 5,000-meter, and seniors Erika Wade and Krystyn Stöwe round out the women’s 4x400 team.

Men's and Women's 400-Hurdle Records Fall at NCAA Champs

MEN'S RESULTS | WOMEN'S RESULTS

Marietta, Ohio, May 21, 2009 – The Washington University men’s and women’s track and field teams had a number of impressive performances on the first day of the 2009 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday, May 21, in Marietta, Ohio, but none more so than the pair of record breaking runs in the men’s and women’s 400-meter hurdle preliminaries.

Senior Tanner Coghill won heat three of the men’s 400-hurdles with a Washington University school-record breaking time of 52.42, a mark that stood as the third best among all 16 competitors during Thursday’s competition and qualified him for the final, to take place on Saturday, May 23, at 3:15 p.m. (ET). It is the second year in a row that Coghill broke the 400-hurdle school record during the NCAA preliminaries; he set the previous best mark of 52.61 last year in Oshkosh, Wis.

Senior Danielle Wadlington also broke her own school record in the 400-hurdles, posting a time of 1:00.94 in Thursday afternoon’s preliminaries. She is ranked third overall heading into Saturday’s final and each of the top-three competitors submitted what would have stood as the NCAA Division III season-best time heading into the outdoor championships. Wadlington’s old school record in the 400-hurdles was 1:01.51, also set at the 2008 NCAA preliminaries.

Competing in the first NCAA outdoor championship of her career, sophomore Taryn Surtees captured the first All-America finish of the meet for Washington U. with a third-place showing in the 10,000-meter run. Surtees submitted a time of 35:46.94 on Thursday evening, just five seconds off the school-record breaking NCAA automatic qualifying pace she set just two weeks ago.

With two NCAA indoor All-America finishes already on her résumé, Surtees' outdoor All-America performance was the first in what is becoming one of the most successful distance careers in school history. She became just the fourth student-athlete in Washington University history to earn All-America honors in the women’s 10,000, and the first to do so since Maggie Grabow accomplished the feat with a fifth-place finish in 2005.

Both Washington University squads had multi-event competitors in action on Thursday as the decathlon and heptathlon got underway. Sophomore Ben Harmon stands in sixth-place out of 17 competitors after five events in the decathlon, and senior Alli Alberts ranks seventh following four completed events in a field of 20 in the heptathlon.

Harmon ranked first in the decathlon following the second event of the day, the long jump, in which he leapt 7.11 meters, the best mark of any competitor. He fell in the rankings after the shot put but managed to climb back to sixth with strong performances in the high jump and the 200-meter dash. He cleared 1.97 meters in the high jump, ranking third overall, and was second in the 400 with a time of 50.02. His first day point total is 3,654, just 168 points behind the leader.

Alberts ranked fifth overall with a time of 15.26 in the 100-meter hurdles, the first event of the day in the heptathlon, and also performed well in the shot put, where her best throw of 10.53 meters ranked sixth, and marked a new personal record in the event. With 2,679 points through Thursday’s competition, Alberts trails first place by 425 points as she aims for her second-career All-America finish in the heptathlon.

Even with the first four events of the heptathlon completed, Alberts’ day was not finished as she had the women’s 4x400-meter relay preliminaries still to come. Running the third leg of the relay, she teamed with seniors Erika Wade, Krystyn Stöwe and Wadlington to submit a WU season-best time of 3:49.79 in the race, propelling the Bears to Saturday afternoon’s final. Washington University will have its first All-America finish in the women’s 1,600-meter relay since 2005.

The Washington University women’s team had three competitors in the 1,500-meter run preliminaries, and junior Molly Schlamb advanced to Saturday’s final. Schlamb came in fifth in heat two of the 1,500 prelims and qualified for the finals ranked 11 out of 12 finalists. Freshmen Liz Phillips and Erica Jackey also competed in the 1,500, submitting times of 4:41.05 and 4:49.94 respectively.

Senior Aubrey Edwards was also in action on Thursday, competing in the hammer throw. She finished 17th out of 19 competitors in the hammer with a distance of 46.97 meters. Edwards qualified for the hammer throw with a school-record distance of 49.52 meters and was making the first NCAA Championship appearance of her career.

Washington U. will have three student-athletes in competition on Friday, as Harmon and Alberts complete the final events in the decathlon and heptathlon, and Wadlington runs in the women’s 100-meter hurdle preliminaries.