Strong Contingent at NCAA Regionals
May 28, 2015 01:41 PM | General
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| Sophomore Brianna Kerekes is one of four WVU competitors qualified for tonight's 1,500 preliminaries at the 2015 NCAA East Regional in Jacksonville, Florida. | |
| Big 12 Conference photo |
Actually, he’s quadrupling down because the veteran coach has entered four Mountaineer athletes in this year’s preliminary races. That total matches Michigan and Virginia Tech for the second most of any program in the country behind Oregon’s five competitors qualified for this weekend’s West Regional 1,500.
Morgantown freshman Millie Paladino heads into this weekend as the 24th-fastest competitor in the race by virtue of her 4:21.35 clocking registered at a very slow Big 12 Championship race two weeks ago, while freshman Amy Cashin (31st), sophomore Brianna Kerekes (42nd) and junior Kelly Williams (45th) also will be performing.
It’s West Virginia’s best collection of milers since the terrific group comprised of All-Americans Keri Bland, Jessica O’Connell, Karly Hamric and Kaylyn Christopher four years ago.
What makes Cleary so enthusiastic about this group of milers is that all of them will be returning for 2015. And that is something you can write down and underline.
“My No. 1 goal this weekend is to get a couple of those milers through the first round of the 1,500,” said Cleary.
Paladino (featured yesterday) is one of the most decorated distance runners in state history and has a very bright future. Williams once reached the podium at nationals a couple years ago before dropping off the radar screen because of injury and illness.
Australia native Cashin is a budding star, and then there is Kerekes, another one of Cleary’s laboratory experiments.
Kerekes ran one spring of outdoor track during her senior season at Trinity High here in Morgantown and showed enough in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes to earn an opportunity to come out for the WVU team two years ago.
Cleary noticed her graceful running stride while working out with the sprinters, pulled her aside one evening, and asked her if she was willing to put in the work to become a distance runner.
Her eyes lit up.
Twelve months later, Kerekes has shaved 20 seconds off her 1,500 time to qualify for this weekend’s NCAA regionals.
“It’s incredible to me what she’s been able to do in a year’s time, and she’s probably made the most improvement of any runner in the country,” Cleary marveled. “She’s just so new to this level so it’s really hard to say where she will end up. She’s still got
a lot of improving to do in the mile, but she has a tremendous work ethic.”
Williams is not new to this race and Cleary believes her fitness level is finally back to where it was two years ago when she qualified for nationals in the mile.
“The last 10 days she’s looked really, really good, and it’s not going to surprise me if she shocks some people down there,” said Cleary.
“Millie and Amy had established high school careers but Kelly and Brianna, no one in the world could have predicted that they could do these things in college so it’s an interesting group of having a few kids we’ve expected it from and a few kids that we were just going to offer an opportunity to run in the program and they’ve really developed,” added Cleary.
Three others will be competing this week, including sixth-year senior Kaitlyn Gillespie, who gets one more crack at returning to Eugene in the 10K.
It’s been a long road back to good health for Gillespie after running in the East Regional in 2012. Gillespie has the seventh-fastest time in the regional entering tonight’s final at 9:40 p.m.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Cleary. “She’s never quit.”
St. Mary’s freshman Maggie Drazba has qualified in the 5K with a time of 16:21.43. Her race is Saturday.
“I think Maggie Drazba in the 5K, being freshman-eligible, is great,” said Cleary. “It’s been a long year for her, and I just want her to get out there and gain some experience, compete and really get to know what’s going on for next year.”
Freshman triple-jumper Shemoya McNeil rounds out the list of competitors this weekend. She will also compete on Saturday.
“Shemoya is peaking at the right time,” said Cleary. “She is coming off a big performance at Big 12.”
Cleary is anxious to see how they perform.
“We’re going to hope for the best and I trust that the girls are going to give us their best this weekend,” he concluded.
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