Regional Preview
May 24, 2007 10:39 AM | General
May 24, 2007
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| Asselin | Bland | Czaikowski | Grandt | Stechschulte |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A large contingent of individual qualifiers will be competing this weekend at the NCAA East Regional track and field championships to be held in Gainesville, Fla., Friday and Saturday.
Five West Virginia University individuals are looking for the right to advance to NCAA nationals to be held in Sacramento, Calif., June 6-9.
“I’m pretty pleased in that all of these girls are in individual events,” WVU coach Jeff Huntoon said. “In the past when we’ve had seven or eight kids it’s been on relays. This equals the amount of individual kids that we’ve ever had.”
Senior Abbie Stechschulte has already qualified for NCAAs in the heptathlon and is currently ranked 12th in the nation in that event. However, the Columbus Grove, Ohio, resident has chosen not to participate in the heptathlon this weekend and will instead compete in the long jump where she is ranked 20th among regional participants.
“It would have been a long five weeks if we would have waited until NCAAs,” explained Huntoon. “We wanted to keep those competitive juices flowing. She’s excited about the long jump and it’s an event that she has really come into her own lately. It was really nice to get qualified and give her the opportunity to go down there with them and compete.”
Stechschulte is coming off a sixth-place finish at indoor nationals in the pentathlon to earn All-America honors.
Senior Jessica Czaikowski also has national experience, qualifying in the 100-meter hurdles as a freshman and sophomore. Czaikowski comes into this weekend’s competition ranked eighth in the region and 25th in the country with a top time of 13.36.
“She went into regionals her freshman year I think ranked 18th or 19th and she qualified for nationals,” Huntoon said. “It’s a one-shot deal. You’ve got to compete on that day. Everybody has a great opportunity to go out there and win their spot.”
Czaikowski will also compete in the 100-meter dash where her top time of 11.61 ranks her 16th in the region.
A pair of up-and-coming freshmen has qualified in the 1,500-meter run in Keri Bland and Marie Louise Asselin. Bland is ranked 58th in the country with a top time of 4:23.71 and Asselin is ranked 84th with a time of 4:25.52. Both have big-meet experience under their belts and Huntoon believes both can reach the finals on Saturday.
“They’ve been to Texas Relays and run against some of the best in the country,” he said. “They’ve been to Penn Relays – we’ve been able to take them to a lot of places where they have stepped up their performances a little bit and run with some of the best out there.
“Are they going to be nervous? Of course and rightfully so, but they’re getting to the point where they’ve seen some of these girls and they know some of the names out there,” Huntoon said.
In fact, Bland actually won the 3K at Penn Relays back in April after the distance medley relay wasn’t able to finish due to Halimah Bashir’s injury. Bland and Asselin have also both competed at the North America, Central America and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC) Cross Country Championships in Orlando, Fla.
“I don’t think they’ll go into regionals overly intimidated,” Huntoon said. “I think they’re ready to go.”
Huntoon says there are benefits to having two runners from the same team competing in the same race.
“It never hurts to have another teammate out there who has similar goals and is going through similar types of things,” he said. “It will be an asset for them.”
Also, sophomore Clara Grandt from West Union, W.Va., has qualified in the 5,000 and heads into Friday’s race ranked 19th in the region and 48th nationally with a time of 16:31.27.
“Clara Grandt may have a little chip on her shoulder because she didn’t run as well as she wanted to at Big East and she’s coming into regionals with a great attitude,” Huntoon said.
Huntoon says the final number of NCAA qualifiers will depend on each event. For example with Czaikowski’s race in the 100 hurdles there could be the heat winner and the next four best times qualifying for nationals. In other events it could simply be the top two finishers.
Regardless, following Friday’s competition these five competitors will know where they stand.
“Everybody goes on Friday and they’ve got to have their best on Friday. If you don’t -- you don’t make it to Saturday,” Huntoon said. “You hate to say it but it’s almost like their finals. If they don’t get it done there’s no tomorrow.”
The 1,500 preliminaries are scheduled for 3:50 pm Friday afternoon; the 5,000 final will take place at 8:50 pm and the long jump final will get underway at 6 pm.
Czaikowski must run the 100-meter hurdles preliminaries at 4:30 pm and then turn around and run the 100-meter dash prelims at 5:10 pm.
