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May 27, 2004
Ten Penguins to Compete at NCAA Mideast Regional
Youngstown -- Ten Youngstown State
track and field athletes will look
to earn automatic bids to the NCAA
Championships as they compete at the
NCAA Mideast Regional in Baton
Rouge, La., Friday and Saturday.
Kurt Michaelis,
Papis Joh, Scott Weiser, Ryan
Strzalka and Kevin Breckenridge will
represent YSU's men's squad while
Emily Schnitkey, Jeanna Cunningham,
Leslie Johnson, Aaliyah Gillespie
and Danielle Bolt will compete on
the women's side.
Michaelis, the only YSU athlete to compete at the meet a year
ago, qualified in the 1,500-meters
and the 3,000-meter steeplechase but
will concentrate solely on the
steeplechase race on Saturday at
8:30 p.m. The senior will
enter the event with a qualifying
time of 8:53.16 - the ninth-ranked
time in the region and the 26th-best
time in the nation. Michaelis,
the Horizon League's Outstanding
Track Performer of the Year, will
need to finish among the top five to
earn an automatic bid to the NCAA
Championships. He will have
his work cut out for him, however,
as he will be competing against six
of the top 20 runners in the nation
in the race.
Joh, Weiser, Strzalka and Breckenridge will compete in the
4x400-meter relay Saturday at 9:15
p.m. after receiving an automatic
bid to compete in the meet by
winning the event at the Horizon
League Outdoor Track and Field
Championship on May 7. The
quartet set the Horizon League and
YSU record with a first-place time
of 3:14.39 at the conference meet.
They will need to finish in the top
three to qualify for the NCAA
Championships.
Schnitkey qualified in the steeplechase on May 14 as she ran
a school-record time of 10:45.69 at
the Georgia Tech Invitational.
The sophomore will enter the event
seeded 25th and will run at 8 p.m.
on Saturday.
Gillespie and Bolt will compete in two events as Gillespie
will compete in the 100-meter
hurdles and the 4x400 and Bolt will
run the 100-meter dash and the
4x400.
Gillespie set a Horizon League record in the preliminary
round of the conference championship
with a time of 14.36 and turned in a
time of 14.71 in the finals to win
and receive the automatic bid.
She will compete in the prelims
Friday at 6 p.m.
Bolt also posted a conference-record time at the Horizon
League Championship as she won the
100 and posted a time 12.04 in the
preliminary heat for the automatic
bid. Her preliminary heat will
be Friday at 7 p.m.
Gillespie and Bolt will be team up with Johnson and
Cunningham for the women's 4x400 on
Saturday at 9 p.m. The quartet
broke a Horizon League record with a
first-place time of 3:48.17 at the
league meet.
The NCAA Championships will be held, June 9-12, in Austin,
Texas. |
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