Harmon Third in Pentathlon; Wadlington Eighth in 55-Hurdles

RESULTS

Terre Haute, Ind., March 14, 2009 – Sophomore Ben Harmon came in third in the pentathlon and senior Danielle Wadlington placed eighth in the 55-meter hurdle finals for the Washington University men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams at the 2009 NCAA Division III Indoor Championships on Saturday, March 14, on the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. The WU men finished the meet in a tie for 32nd place out of 73 teams with six points, while the WU women tallied two points to finish tied for 54th out of 68 teams.

Both student-athletes garnered All-America honors with their top-eight event finishes. Harmon is an All-American for the second time in his career while Wadlington earns the fourth All-America nod over her four seasons on the Danforth Campus. Harmon placed fifth in the decathlon at the 2008 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, and Wadlington was a member of the All-America indoor and outdoor 4x400-relay teams in 2005, and placed second in the triple jump at the indoor championships last year.

Harmon qualified for the pentathlon with a score of 3,597 at the Bob Keck Invitational on Feb. 7, which ranked third in NCAA Division III heading into the championship meet, and he eclipsed that mark with a final tally of 3,671 on Saturday. It is the first time there has been a multi-event at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

After running to an eighth place finish with a time of 8.14 in the 55-meter hurdles to start the day, Harmon climbed the leader board all the way to second place with a event-leading score of 811 points in the long jump, topping all other pentathletes with a personal best distance of 6.99 meters.

Harmon was in fourth place overall after a shot put mark of 10.22 meters, good for 499 points towards his overall tally, and held on to the fourth position after clearing 1.93 meters in the high jump, scoring 740 points and placing fifth among the 12 pentathlon competitors. He managed to climb into third place with a time of 2:44.76 in final event of the day, the 1,000-meter run.

Wadlington ran a time of 8.32 in the 55-meter hurdle finals to place eighth and become the first student-athlete in Washington University history to earn All-America honors in the event. She set a new school record on Friday with a time of 8.27 in the preliminaries, when she was the eighth runner to qualify for Saturday’s final. Summer Rohrs of Frostburg State University won the 55-hurdles with a meet record time of 7.84.

The Washington University men’s and women’s track and field teams will begin the 2009 outdoor season on Saturday, March 21, when they compete in the Rhodes College Open Meet in Memphis, Tenn.

DMR Team Earns All-America Honors For Second Year in a Row

RESULTS

Terre Haute, Ind., March 13, 2009 – The Washington University women’s distance medley relay team earned All-America honors with an eighth place finish at the 2009 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday, March 13, on the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind.

The Washington U. foursome of sophomore Taryn Surtees, senior Erika Wade, junior Molly Schlamb and freshman Elizabeth Phillips posted a time of 12:02.31 as the Bears earned All-America honors in the indoor DMR for the second year in a row.  Washington U. placed fourth in the distance medley relay at the 2008 Indoor Championships, with Surtees and Wade also running on that team.

With its one point from the eight-place finish in the DMR, Washington U. is tied for 34th place overall in the team standings. The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is in first place with 26.5 points.

Senior Danielle Wadlington turned in a school-recording breaking performance in the 55-meter hurdle preliminaries on Friday afternoon and will aim to be the fifth WU All-America recipient of the meet on Saturday afternoon. Wadlington submitted a time of 8.27 in the prelims, breaking her own school record of 8.38, which she set earlier in the season. She is a three-time NCAA All-America honoree but is looking for the first All-America nod in the 55-hurdles of her career. Washington University has never had an All-America performer in the 55-hurdles.

Senior Alli Alberts was the first competitor of the day for the Washington U. women’s team, placing 11th out of 13 competitors in the pentathlon with 3,064 points. The indoor multi-event is in its first year at the NCAA indoor championships and Alberts qualified for the pentathlon with a score of 3,245 at the Bob Keck Invitational on Feb. 7. Alberts was an All-America honoree in the heptathlon at the 2007 NCAA Division III outdoor championships, placing sixth.

Her strongest performance of the day came in the final event of the competition, the 800-meter run, where she finished second amongst the 13 competitors with a time of 2:23.88, which propelled her from 13th to 11th place overall. She opened the day with a time of 9.36 in the 55-hurdles, then cleared 1.51 meters in the high jump. The other two events comprising the pentathlon are the shot put and the long jump. She threw for a distance of 8.53 meters in the shot put, and leapt 4.88 meters in the long jump.

The Washington University men’s and women’s indoor track and field squads will close competition at the 2009 NCAA Division III Championships on Saturday, March 14. Sophomore Ben Harmon will compete in the pentathlon for the WU men on Saturday morning beginning with the 55-meter high hurdles at 9 a.m., and Wadlington will run in the 55-meter hurdle finals at 2:25 p.m.