The Charger Track and Field teams approach their next to last meet looking strong.
Last weekend they competed in the Eastern Michigan University Classic in Ypsilanti where the women’s team boasted two event wins and two more NCAA provisional qualifying times.
Senior Carrie Douglas led the Charger women with a first place finish in the 800-meter race, again recording a time (two minutes and 16.57 seconds) that makes her a provisional qualifier for the national competition.
Senior DiOnna Williams also earned provisional qualifier status, running the 200 dash in 25.33 and taking second place.
Currently, both Douglas and Williams are ranked among the top 15 athletes in the nation for their respective events. Twelve athletes from each event will compete at the national championship meet held this March in Boston.
Other leaders for the Charger women were freshman Jazmin Williams, who took first in the 400 dash with a time of 58.44 and junior Alissa Hall, who won the 3000 race at 10:08.57, improving her personal best time by 15 seconds.
In the weight throw, senior Emily Sharp took second place with a distance of 48 feet, nine inches.
The women’s team also had a number of third place finishers: senior Lindsay Stevens in the pole vault (10-11) and triple jump (31-8), senior Robin Joecken in the shot put (38-7) and sophomore Lesley Turner in the 5-kilometer (19:29), as well as the 1600 relay team (4:23.83).
“These winners were really impressive,” Head Coach Bill Lundberg said.
Lundberg said he was especially impressed with Turner, calling her a star of the meet. Turner had little competitive experience before college and walked on to the team last year.
“She’s starting to get racing-savvy and competitive,” Lundberg said. “It’s neat to see an athlete blossom like that.”
This year the men’s team is still waiting for some of its athletes to blossom into a provisional spot on the qualifying list for nationals, though Lundberg said several are close.
Leading the men at Eastern was sophomore Blake England, who finished fifth in the 200 dash at 22.72, setting a new personal best time.
Freshman Grant Wolf finished second in the 60 hurdles with a time of 9.05, although in the preliminary race he clocked a time of 8.88.
“He’s coming off football and seems solid,” Lundberg said.
Senior Andrew Daugherty also had a second place finish. Daugherty set a seasonal record for himself in the weight throw at 49-9.
Other top performances on the men’s team were junior Alex Schmidtendorff in the 800 (1:58.9, 5th place) and senior Scott Kallgren in the mile (4:20.05, 7th place).
The men’s and women’s teams compete this Saturday at the Silverton Invitational in Ann Arbor, their last meet before the GLIAC conference meet Feb. 24 and 25.
“When you’re two weeks away from the Conference meet it’s good to see this much depth in your team,” Lundberg said.