NCAA Track and Field Preliminaries

Kirby Lee

The NCAA Track and Field Preliminaries for the East and West took place over the weekend. The East Preliminary Round was held at University of North Florida and the West Preliminary was at University of Arkansas. The top 12 athletes from each preliminary advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships on June 11-14 at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

PhotoRun/Victor Sailer

Several of my favorite runners are heading to nationals: Michigan freshman Erin Finn is the #1 seed in the women's 10,000m with a time of 33:13.46. Seeded fourth in the 5000m is Abbey D'Agostino from Dartmouth. Cory McGee from Florida is seeded seventh in the 1500m. Laura Roesler from Oregon is seeded second in the women's 800m.

Other Michigan women track athletes participating in nationals is Brook Handler in the 1500m, Alex Leptich in the 3000m steeplechase and Cindy Ofili in the 100m hurdles.

On the men's side, races I'm looking forward to are Lawi Lalang from Arizona in the 1500m. The battle between Kennedy Kithuka from Texas Tech, Lalang from Arizona and Oregon freshmen Edward Cheserek in the 5000m. Wisconsin's Mohammed Ahmed will also be in that race. Kithuka and Cheserek are slated to battle again as the top two seeds in the 10,000m. Also in the race is seventh seed Ahmed and Michigan's Morsi Rayyan. Michigan's Mason Ferlic is the top rated seed in the 3000m steeplechase with a time of 8:38.74.