IWU Sports

May 24, 2005

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - Eight women and five men from Illinois Wesleyan University are among the 688 qualifiers for the national NCAA Division III outdoor track and field championships, to be held May 26-28 at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

Freshmen Rachel Anderson and Cortney Walrath, senior Gena Rawlins, and juniors Melinda Sprague and Melissa Harden will compete in individual events for the women, while freshmen Matt Harden and Segun Olopo and seniors Tyler Neal and Zach Gorsage are among the male entrants in the meet.

Krystal Jenkins (Villa Park HS), Allison Fisher (Oswego HS) and Brooke Halcott (Streator HS) are women who will fill out relay teams for the Titans and junior Eric Sauer (Elgin, Larkin HS) will run a leg on the men’s 4x100 relay team with Neal, Olopo and Harden.

The student-athletes qualified for the national meet by reaching the automatic and provisional standards established for each event.

Anderson (Clinton HS) qualified fifth best in the country in the 400 with a time of 56.41 seconds and is 18th in the country in the 200 (25.06).

A 13-time NCAA All-American in her career, Rawlins (Atlanta, Stanford Olympia HS) holds nine school records and will run the 400 as the seventh fastest qualifier with a time of 56.52 seconds.

Melissa Harden (O'Fallon, Township HS) has the 18th best triple jump leading into the national meet and was the conference champion in the event.

Walrath (Peoria, Central HS) and Sprague (Ballwin, Mo., Parkway West HS) represent IWU’s first national qualifiers in the pole vault and 3000 meter steeplechase, respectively. Walrath’s pole vault of 11 feet, 9 inches is 13th best among Division III competitors this spring.

Sprague is the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin champion in the steeplechase and her time of 11:07.1 is 18th in the nation.

Jenkins will join Harden, Anderson and Rawlins in the 4x100 relay, which qualified 15th with a time of 47.96 seconds and Fisher and Halcott join Anderson and Rawlins in the 4x400 relay, with a 10th-best national qualifying mark of 3:54.05.

Matt Harden (O'Fallon, Township HS) has qualified in the 100, 200 and 110 hurdles. He has the fourth best time in the 110 hurdles with a mark of 14.41 seconds, the seventh-best time in the 100 (10.58 seconds) and the 17th best 200 time (21.61).

Gorsage (Washington, Peoria Notre Dame HS), a two-time indoor All-American, is making his first trip to the outdoor national meet as he qualified ninth best in the 110 hurdles with a time of 14.58 seconds.

Neal (Bloomington HS), the CCIW champion and school record holder in the 200, has the seventh best qualifying time in the event with a 21.50 time.

Olopo (Chicago, Brooks School), who had a broken foot during the IWU indoor season and is still not back to full speed, was speedy enough to earn the 12th best qualifying time in the 100 at 10.69 seconds.

After four straight outdoor crowns, Wisconsin-La Crosse again is the presumptive favorite at the championships, but challengers should make the race much closer than last year, when the Eagles won by a record 62 points. The outcome may hinge on races involving standout runners Nate Olson of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Bobby Young of Lincoln (Pa.), who is trying to stop Olson from sweeping the indoor and outdoor 400-meter runs this year and also seeks to anchor Lincoln's 1,600-meter relay past the defending champs ... Nebraska Wesleyan consistently has been a top-five finisher in recent years, posting a best-ever second-place finish at last year's outdoor meet ...Willamette did not compete at this year's indoor meet but should be in the mix outdoors with returning 800-meter run champion Nick Symmonds.

Wisconsin-Oshkosh's Robyn Jarocki could become only the third woman in Division III outdoor championships history to win three titles in the same year -- and the first to do so exclusively in field events -- by sweeping the shot put, discus throw and hammer throw. Jarocki, who powered the Titans to the indoor team crown with victories in the shot and weight throw in March, is the defending outdoor hammer-throw titleist and has the second-best qualifying mark in that event, as well as the best current marks in the other two disciplines ... Distance runner Missy Buttry will close out her collegiate career on her home track, and hopes to reclaim a crown she surrendered in one of the few races she lost during the past three years -- last year's 1,500-meter run (she won the event in 2002 and 2003 but was runner-up in 2004) ... Amherst's and Williams' distance runners appear set to resume a duel that saw the teams finish third and fourth, respectively, at the indoor championships. Amherst senior Carter Hamill is seeking to repeat as 10,000-meter run champion.

IWU Qualifies 13 for National Outdoor Meet