College Station, Texas ? A total of 11 athletes will be representing the Western Athletic Conference this week at the Indoor Track and Field NCAA Championships in Texas. The national championships are this Friday and Saturday, March 13-14, at the McFerrin Athletic Center in College Station, Texas. Texas A&M University will serve as the host.
A total of 568 participants will compete in the championships. Student-athletes qualified for the championships by reaching the automatic or provisional standards established for each event.
ESPN360.com will stream portions of the championships live both days. Remaining coverage will be available on www.NCAA.com. Additionally, ESPN2 will air a 90-minute show at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, Monday, March 23. For more information regarding the indoor championships, please visit www.NCAA.com.
Boise State’s Ryan Grinnell, a senior, will compete in the men’s high jump and triple jump this weekend. He enters the meet ranked No. 13 in the high jump (7-1.75/2.18m) and No. 10 in the triple jump (52-10.25/16.11m). Grinnell won the Western Athletic Conference triple jump crown with that mark. He finished second at the WAC championships in the high jump (6-10.75/2.10m). He was named the WAC men’s Outstanding Field Athlete and the High Point Award winner after scoring 28 points for the Broncos in the meet. Grinnell earned All-American status in both events as a junior, after finishing eighth in the high jump (7-0.25/2.16m) and sixth in the triple jump (52-3.25/15.93m) at the 2008 NCAA Indoor Championships.
Simon Wardhaugh, a senior, travels to the NCAA Championships meet ranked No. 3 in the men’s weight throw (73-0.00/22.25m). His top mark of the season came on Dec. 6 at the Jacksons Open in Nampa. The throw broke the Boise State indoor record and was the top weight throw in the country until Feb. 13. Wardhaugh won the weight throw at the WAC Championship meet with a toss of 71-08.00 (21.84m). He finished fifth at the 2008 NCAA Indoor Championship meet with a throw of 71-11.50, which earned him All-American status.
Eleni Kafourou, also a senior, enters the NCAA Championships ranked No. 7 in both the women’s long jump (21-1.25/6.43m) and triple jump (43-7.00/13.28m). She broke the Boise State indoor record in both events this season. Kafourou also won WAC titles in both the long (19-10.75/6.06m) and triple (43-07.00/13.28m) jumps. For her efforts, she was named WAC women’s co-Outstanding Field Athlete and the High Point Award winner (28 points). Kafourou finished 11th in the long jump (20-2.50 (6.16m) at last year’s NCAA Championship meet.
Fresno State
Senior Sharon Ayala is headed to the NCAA Indoor Championship this weekend. A stellar performance at the UW Last Chance Meet last Saturday rocketed Ayala from No. 18 to the 10th spot nationally and earning her a bid to the NCAAs. Ayala had a throw of 65-feet, 6.75 inches (19.98 meters), at the meet in Seattle, to setting a new Fresno State record. She will be the Fresno State's first female athlete in to the NCAA Indoor Championship in this century. Ayala is the first Fresno State athlete to compete in the weight throw at the NCAAs.
Hawaii
Multi-event athlete Annett Wichmann and high jumper Amber Kaufman will represent the Rainbow Wahine at this week’s NCAA Indoor Championships. Wichmann and Kaufman, who will compete in the pentathlon and high jump, respectively, will participate on Friday, March 13, the first day of competition. Both athletes earned NCAA provisional marks in their respective events and received at-large invitations to the national collegiate indoor meet. Wichmann, the three-time Western Athletic Conference pentathlon champion, will be making her third appearance at NCAA Indoor. Last season she placed fourth overall with a school-record 4,177 points.
Kaufman captured the WAC high jump title two weeks ago and will be making her first trip to NCAA Indoor. The multi-sport star who is also a starting middle blocker on the nationally ranked UH women’s volleyball team, won the WAC title with a jump of 5-9.25 (1.76m), shy of her seasonal-best mark of 5-11.5 (1.82) at the Northern Arizona Classic. Both Wichmann and Kaufman earned All-America honors last season during the outdoor season and led UH to a Top 25 finish at the NCAA Championship. Behind the duo, the Rainbow Wahine are 54th in the latest USTFCCCA Division I rankings.
Idaho
The Vandals’ juniors KC Dahlgren and Mykael Bothum were both announced among the few athletes making the cut for the meet, which annually takes between 13 and 18 competitors in each event. Both athletes are making the NCAA trip for the first time.
Bothum’s selection came as no surprise after her school-record-breaking shot put of 16.98m (55-0.25) at the WAC Championships, where she won the women’s title by a seven-foot margin. That throw moved Bothum into fifth in the NCAA in the event and clinched her spot at the meet.
For Dahlgren, things were a little more stressful. Her season-best 4.16m (13-7.75) was tied for 16th in the NCAA over the weekend and she was perched squarely on the bubble, but she snuck in as the final qualifier. Both athletes will be competing at about the same time on Saturday, March 14. The women’s shot put starts at 1:45 p.m. (PT) and the women’s pole vault gets going at 4 p.m.
The last time Idaho had two women’s competitors at the NCAA indoor meet was in 2005, when Manuela Kurrat took third in the pentathlon and Tassie Souhrada took sixth in the high jump.
Utah State
Three Utah State track and field athletes will be competing at the NCAA National Championships. Senior John Strang will be competing in the heptathlon, while sophomore Clint Silcock will be in the high jump and sophomore Sonia Grabowska will be in the pole vault.
Strang has the No. 14 qualifying mark with 5,522 points, a USU school record that he set in winning the Western Athletic Conference heptathlon championship for the second-straight year.
Silcock holds the No. 5 qualifying high jump height of 2.20m (7-02.50) at the Washington State Cougar Invitational on Jan. 31. He won the WAC high jump title clearing 7-01.00 (2.16m).
Grabowska is tied for the No. 8 qualifying height in the pole vault at 4.20m (13-9.50). That mark set on Jan. 18 at USU's Wilson Motor Invitational, smashing the previous Utah State and Nelson Fieldhouse record of 13-0.25 (3.97m) by Kathryn Duhadway in 2006. Grabowska also qualifies for the European Under-23 Track & Field Championships, as well as tying for the second-best mark by a Polish pole vaulter and her mark is now tied for the 15th-best in the world this season.