NCAA Division III Indoor Track 2005

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (March 7, 2005) — Three women and two men from Illinois Wesleyan University hope that “home track advantage” pays off in this weekend's NCAA Division III national indoor track and field championships.

Freshman Rachel Anderson, senior Gena Rawlins and sophomore Melissa Harden are among the 200 female competitors while senior Zach Gorsage and freshman Matt Harden, Melissa's brother, are among the 200 male entrants in the meet, to be held at IWU's Shirk Center March 11-12.

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

The events at the Shirk Center, which also served as the site of the 2000 national meet, begin at 10:30 a.m. each day and tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for students with an ID.

Titan Qualifiers

Anderson (Clinton HS) and Rawlins (Atlanta, Stanford Olympia HS) both qualified for the 400, with the preliminary race scheduled for 6:35 p.m. Friday. Anderson posted the third best qualifying time this season at 57.56 seconds while Rawlins qualified No. 8 with a time of 58.29.

Rawlins looks for her fourth straight top four finish in the national indoor meet - she was third in the 400 last year with a run of 56.09 seconds and was fourth in the 400 as a freshman and sophomore. She was also part of the national indoor champion 4x400 relay team as a junior.

Melissa Harden (O'Fallon, Ill., Township HS) will run at 6:05 p.m. Friday in the prelims of the 55 hurdles. Her qualifying time of 8.50 seconds was 13th best in the country.

Gorsage (Washington, Peoria Notre Dame HS) and Matt Harden (O'Fallon, Ill., Township HS) will run at 6:20 p.m. Friday in the 55 hurdles prelims and Harden will also run in the 55 meter dash preliminaries at 7:05 p.m. Friday.

Gorsage's automatic qualifying time of 7.54 seconds in the 55 hurdles is second best in the country and Harden's time of 7.55 is third best. Gorsage was an indoor All-American in 2003 when he finished seventh at the national meet in the 55 hurdles and qualified for the national indoor meet last year but failed to reach the finals, suffering an injury during the preliminary qualifying.

Harden's 6.43 second qualifying time in the 55 is tied for fourth best in the nation with two-time defending champion Bret Blake of Nebraska Wesleyan.

Illinois Wesleyan Qualifies Five for National Meet