Track: WVU Travels To NCAA Championship
March 12, 2009 03:49 PM | General
March 12, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University women’s track and field team travels to College Station, Texas, this weekend to compete in the 2009 NCAA Indoor Track and Field National Championship held at the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium on the Texas A&M campus.
The meet begins on Friday, March 13, with the men’s and women’s multi-events at 10 a.m., followed by the running events at 4 p.m. Saturday’s schedule begins at noon with the men’s and women’s field events, followed by the running events at 5 p.m.
The Mountaineers will have six athletes competing at the national meet, including April Rotilio, Kaylyn Christopher, Karly Hamric, Marie-Louise Asselin, Chelsea Carrier, and Keri Bland.
“We have to raise our level one step higher to be ready for the competition that we will face,” comments Coach Sean Cleary. “It is a tribute to our coaching staff to have advanced six women to the national finals. We look forward to the challenges that lay ahead of us.”
The distance medley relay (DMR) team will compete at the NCAA Championship for the ninth time out of the last 11 years. The DMR team of Rotilio, Christopher, Hamric and Asselin qualified for the championship with a time of 11:06.12 at Notre Dame’s Alex Wilson Invitational on March 6th.
The time was a school-record, topping the previous record of 11:07.64, which was set by Rotilio, Hamric, Asselin and Bland at the 2008 NCAA Indoor Championship. The DMR team finished fourth, with all four team members earning All-America honors.
Carrier will compete in two events this weekend, the pentalathlon and the 60-meter hurdles. She qualified for the NCAA Championship when she set a personal-best time of 8.27 in the 60-meter hurdle event on March 7, at the Alex Wilson Invitational.
The sophomore took first place at the Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup on Feb. 6, qualifying for the NCAA Championship in the pentathlon with 3,967 points. Carrier took first place in the 60-meter hurdles (8.58), the high jump (1.71-meters), the shot put (10.01-meters) and the long jump (5.73-meters), while finishing second in the 800-meter dash (2:21.59). Carrier’s mark is the third-best in WVU history behind Pat Itanyi (4,111) and Abbie Stechschulte (4,016).
"Chelsea Carrier is one of the East Coast's best all-around track and field athletes, and I am very excited to see that she was selected for the national field,” said Cleary.
Bland will compete in the mile event after she qualified for the NCAA’s, set a school and BIG EAST Championship meet record and took the title at the BIG EAST Indoor Championship on Feb. 22, with a time of 4:34.78. The previous WVU record was set at 4:35.89 by Megan Metcalfe in 2004, and the BIG EAST Indoor Championship meet record was originally set by Kate Vermeulen of West Virginia in 1999.
For her efforts in the meet, Bland was named the meet’s Most Outstanding Track Performer, voted on by all 16 women’s head coaches. She shared the award with Providence’s Danette Doetzel.
Live stats, standings and heat sheets will be available at aggieathletics.com, with a full recap on MSNsportsNET.com following the conclusion of each day’s events.
