Seven Saint Lucian student athletes will represent their respective schools at the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I Outdoor Track and Field West Regional Preliminary next weekend, 24-26 May at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. The NCAA Championships began two years ago with a qualifying format which involves the top 48 athletes in each event advancing to two preliminary meets, the West and East regions. From the regionals, the top 12 finishers from each event will receive an invitation to the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, 6-9 June.
Makeba Alcide is the highest-ranked Saint Lucian athlete in the NCAA this season, but she is qualified directly to De Moines in Heptathlon, her mark of 5,621 points 12th overall in the nation. But in Austin, the junior at the University of Arkansas will be competing in women's High Jump, where she goes in with a height of 1.76m, the 27th-best performance for the year, and the top mark for the Razorbacks this season.
Meanwhile, the highest ranked Saint Lucian going into Austin is Jhorden Hunter, a sophomore at University of Texas San Antonio. Her mark of 11.47 seconds in the 100m dash leads the Roadrunners and ranks her 14th overall in the West region. Also in the women's sprints, a pair of Missouri State Bears will be in action. Sophomore Pernell Joseph from Vieux Fort has qualified in two individual events, the 100m and 200m. She won the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor titles in both events, posting marks of 11.61 and 23.76, respectively, in Wichita last weekend. She is seeded 27th in the 200 and 31st in the 100. Joining Joseph for the 200 will be freshman Merica Moncherry of Ti Rocher, Micoud, who is seeded right behind her teammate at No. 28 with a time of 23.81 last weekend. Hunter's Roadrunners, ranked 13th, will take on Joseph and Moncherry's 16th-ranked Bears in the 4x100.
Three Saint Lucian men will compete in horizontal jumps in Austin. Jeremiah James, a senior at the University of Wyoming, will enter as the 18th-ranked athlete in Triple Jump, with a best performance of 15.63m, but he will be hoping to recapture his form from previous seasons and elevate himself into the top 12. Karique Stephens, a junior at Sam Houston State, will also be representing in Triple Jump. His season-best and career-best mark of 15.37m has him 29th in the nation and second on the Bearkats. Another student athlete from Wyoming, Lenyn Leonce, will aim to overcome a difficult season and to surpass his season-best mark of 7.35m when he steps onto the Long Jump runway for the Cowboys. His national ranking is 47th.
All seven Saint Lucians in Austin next weekend should be eligible for the North and Central American and Caribbean Under-23 Athletics Championships, which will be held in Mexico in July.
No comments:
Post a Comment