Two more qualify at Butler Twilight
As the season winds down, the Maroons are still wound up and competing fiercely.
With the outdoor track and field season in its final stages, the Maroons blew into Indianapolis for the Butler Twilight Invitational. Team members were aiming for superb performances on Saturday that would yield a chance to race in the NCAA Division III Championships in Waverly, Iowa on May 26.
Third-year Jessica Winter won the women’s 1,500-meter run and second-year Emil Bojanov finished second in the men’s event. Bojanov’s time of 3:54.47 earned him a chance to compete at NCAAs and placed him 11th in the nation. Winter, finishing six seconds ahead of Vanderbilt third-year Alisa Cotter in 4:35.26, clinched a spot at NCAAs and a fourth-place national ranking. Winter previously met the qualifying standard at the Chicagolands Invitational on April 9.
“My goal there will be to get All-American,” Winter said. If a competitor finishes in the top eight at NCAAs, he or she will earn All-American honors.
Other notable performances for the track and field teams included first-year Nofi Mojidi’s second place finish in the 100-meter dash and class mates Appie Hirve and Cynthia Lin going 2-3 in the women’s triple jump. On the men’s side, graduate student Jerome Tharaud and second-year Brian Hague went 1-2 in the men’s 5,000-meter run, and fourth-years Seyi Oyenuga and Brian Eichorn contributed third place finishes in the long jump and pole vault.
With four Maroons guaranteed spots at NCAAs, including Mojidi and first-year Myra Collins in the long jump, the remainder of the squad is now focused on qualifying at the Dr. Keeler Invitational in Naperville, Illinois on Thursday.
“I think you can look forward to seeing a number of additional qualifiers in the next two weeks,” said head coach Chris Hall. “We have several people on the edge of standards and with the right competition and weather it’s just a matter of time.”
-—Kathryn Stewart
