02/14/09

VU Women Shine at APU Indoor Qualifier

Azusa, Calif. - The Vanguard University track and field teams traveled to Azusa today to compete at the Azusa Pacific University Indoor Qualifier meet. The Vanguard women’s team captured the highlights with two new school records and three automatic qualifiers for the NAIA Indoor National Meet.

Junior (OCC transfer) Ashley Rodriguez qualified for indoor nationals by winning the 600 meters in a school record time of 1:37.79, bettering Maribel Delgado's 2000 school best of 1:41.80 by over four seconds. Freshman Megan Williams raced to an impressive second place finish in the mile in 5:07.03. Her automatic national qualifying time broke the former 2007 school record held by Jewel Butler (5:07.21) an NAIA Indoor All-American at the time she set the mark. Junior Rebecca Sopp was the third women's national qualifier on the day, runnng 18:05.28 in the 5,000 meters to finish third.

Junior Kelsie Davis cleared 5-2 in the high jump to finish second. She came up a little shy of tying her personal best 5-3 3/4 and a possible berth to nationals.

The Lion men were also impressive today with four new Personal Records and a Provisional Qualifying mark for the men's team.  VU's men were lead by junior (OCC transfer) Morgan Rose who finished fourth in the 600 meters with a personal best 1:21.34 just missing the automatic qualifying standard by a mere .09 seconds. Rose's time was the second fastest in school history. In like fashion, junior Mike Hartanov raced to the second fastest 1,000 meter time in school history 2:33.39 (2.19 seconds shy of the automatic standard) finishing third overall.  Freshman Chad Smith also set a new PR with a time of 2:41.74 in the same event.  Noah Lopez was VU's final male athlete with a new career mark today as he finished eighth in the 3,000 meter run with a time of 9:39.88. 

The Lions now have a total of six athletes automatically qualified for the NAIA Indoor National Championships March 5th-7th in Johnson City, Tennessee (Aze Perkins, Allie Armando, Chelsea Van Cott, Ashley Rodriguez, Megan Williams and Rebecca Sopp).

Vanguard’s next meet is the Azusa Pacific Last Chance Indoor Qualifier Meet on Saturday, February 21st.

Vanguard Women’s Track and Field Results - Complete Meet Results

Vanguard University Men’s Track and Field Results - Complete Meet Results

Use the Azusa Pacific website for more details on the meet and thanks for following the Vanguard Lions.