Seven Chadron State College athletes are in Allendale, Michigan, for the NCAA Division II National Outdoor Track and Field Championships this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The CSC contingent is comprised of five women and two men with a total of four seniors, a sophomore and two freshmen.
The meet, which is being hosted by Grand Valley State University and the West Michigan Sports Commission, has 754 participants, evenly divided between men and women. There are about 20 entries in each individual event.
Five of the Eagles will be in action on Thursday. Freshman Kelsy Wood will compete in four of the seven events in the heptathlon; senior Alyssa Norton will throw the hammer, the first of her three events at nationals; seniorAshley Riesen will run the preliminaries of the 1500 meters; freshman Stashia Reuwsaat will long jump; and senior Gavan Archibald will run the preliminaries of the 400 hurdles.
On Friday, Wood will complete the heptathlon, Norton and sophomore Mel Herl will throw the discus and seniorKarl McFarlane will run the preliminaries of the 110 high hurdles.
Saturday will see Norton throw the shot late in the afternoon while Riesen and the two hurdlers hope to be in the finals of their events. The last event is slated to start at 9:05 p.m. (EDT).
This is McFarlane’s seventh national competition. He has earned All-American six times, including five times in the hurdles. He has been third, seventh and fourth indoors and fifth and fourth outdoors during his star-studded career. The only time he did not place was at the 2010 outdoor meet when he was a freshman.
McFarlane has the fifth fastest time among the 20 high hurdlers, 14.05 at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, Calif., last month but was timed in 14-flat earlier in the month at South Dakota Mines…a time not used by the NCAA.
The event leader is Kevin Baxter of Lenoir-Rhyne College of North Carolina in 13.81 seconds. Dennis Bain of Claflin University of South Carolina is second in 13.83.
The competition also includes Indoor 60-meter hurdles champion Ty’reak Murray of St. Augustine’s in North Carolina. Murray’s winning time indoors was 7.78 seconds. McFarlane was fourth in 7.93.
This is Archibald’s second straight trip to nationals in the 400 intermediates a year ago, coming in both times as the RMAC champion. He comes into nationals with 5 straight victories, and set the CSC record of 52.39 in his last race at the Colorado Mines Last Chance Meet on Friday, May 9.
The 400 hurdles leader entering nationals is Roxroy Cato of St. Augustine’s in 48.67 seconds. Teammate Elhadji Mbow is second in 50.12.
Norton is the most experienced of the CSC womena, going to nationals in the discus for the fourth consecutive year. She also has been to the National Indoor Meet the past two seasons, but has never placed at a national meet so she hopes to close out her exceptional collegiate career by earning a medal this time.
Statistically, Norton’s best chance is in the discus where she ranks seventh with throws of 159-1 during an early-season meet at Kearney and again in California in mid-April. The event leader entering is Tatiana Zhuravleva of the University of Indianapolis at 181-8.
Herl also qualified for nationals in the discus at the Kearney meet with a mark of 154-6. That is 15th on the national chart.
Norton is also 20th in the shot put and 19th in the hammer throw. She has hit 46-7 ¼ in the shot while the Division II leader is Jamie Sindelar of Ashland University of Ohio at 53-2 ¼. Norton’s best in the hammer is 176-8 while Heavin Warner of Central Missouri State leads the nation at 210-2.
Wayne State’s Carly Fehringer is second on the hammer throw list at 205-10 and the Wildcats’ Sara Wells is second in the shot put at 52-4 and fourth in the discus at 164-0. Wells is the younger sister of former Chadron State All-American throwers Jacqueline and Mary Wells of Albion.
Riesen is another veteran who has earned great respect for her work ethic and leadership during her career at CSC. She reached the finals in the 1500 at the National Indoor meet this year and qualified outdoors in the same event with a time of 4:33.39 after altitude adjustments.
The national leader is Courtney Anderson of Cal State-Stanislaus in 4:20.65 while Adams State’s Alicia Nelson is third at 4:22.70. Nelson also is the national pacesetter in the 5000.
This will be just the third heptathlon for Wood, who scored 4,343 points at her first competition in California and then tallied 4,920 points at the RMAC heptathlon just a month later. Her 577-point gain was something of a surprise and puts her 13th on the national list.
Another RMAC athlete, Salcia Slack of New Mexico Highlands, set the all-time Division II women’s heptathlon record of 5,833 points during the conference championships earlier this month.
Reuwsaat’s long jumping achievements are not a huge surprise. She went 18-9 ½ while setting the Class A state record for St. Thomas More at the South Dakota State Meet last spring and leaped 19-6 ¾ for CSC during the 2014 indoor season to qualify for the National Championships.
Reuwsaat went the limit before qualifying for the outdoor nationals, finally getting the invitation by going 19-7 at the Colorado Mines Last Chance Meet two weeks ago. That jump established a new CSC outdoors long jump record.
Two women, Shanice McPherson, a freshman at New Mexico Highlands, and Kaylee Morgan of Missouri Southern, share the national lead at 20-3.