By Beth Renkoski

03/06/09

Lion Trio Advances at NAIA Indoor Nationals

Johnson City, Tenn (Memorial Center “Mini Dome” at East Tennessee State University) – The 44th Annual Men’s and 29th Annual Women’s NAIA Indoor Track And Field Championships started Thursday at Memorial Center “Mini Dome” in Johnson City, Tennessee. Nine Vanguard University track and field athletes are competing at the 2009 Championships, held March 5-7, 2009. After two days of competition, the Lions have qualified three athletes (Aze Perkins, Megan Williams, and Rebecca Sopp) for tomorrow’s finals.

Vanguard opened the competition on Thursday evening with the preliminary race for the women’s Distance Medley Relay event featuring Megan Williams, Allie Armando, Ashley Rodriguez, and Chelsea Van Cott. Although VU’s DMR team did not qualify for the final, the quartet did post the second-fastest women’s DMR time in school history (12:23.95). The team finished third in their heat with a season-best time by over five seconds, and was just two seconds shy of the final qualifying time. VU’s splits in the event were as follows: Megan Williams (1200m = 3:40.5), Allie Armando (400m = 1:01.9), Ashley Rodriguez (800m = 2:24.1), and Chelsea Van Cott (1600 = 5:17.4). The only VU women’s DMR team with a faster time was the 2004 All-American team of Jenny Thune, Jenifer Zipprich, Christol McDonald and Sarah Hall who ran 12:01.88 (and finished 3rd).

Day two of the event featured a mix of field events, including hurdles, and track events with VU in the distance and middle distance events.

Junior Aze Perkins (60m Hurdles) is trying to repeat his honors of 2008 by placing fourth in his heat and sixth overall in his prelimary races. Advancing to the six-man final with a semifinal time of 8.20, Perkins needs only to finish tomorrow’s final to earn NAIA All-American honors.

Team Captain Rebecca Sopp (5,000m) and Williams (Mile) joined Aze in advancing to tomorrow’s finals. Sopp ran a an18:03.20 to finish fifth in her heat and fifth overall, qualifying for the 12-person final late tomorrow afternoon. Williams, a freshman making her first ever NAIA appearance, placed sixth in her heat and tenth overall. Her time of 5:11.55 will seed her tenth in tomorrow’s ten-person final.

Juniors Morgan Rose (600m) and Mike Hartanov (1000m) debuted and ended their NAIA competition today as they did not qualify to advance to tomorrow’s final event. Rose was timed at 1:22.26 in the 600m and Hartanov clocked in at 2:33.39 in the 1000 meter. On the women’s side, Ashley Rodriguez posted a time of 1:39.00 in the 600 meter run, but was not fast enough to move on to the final event.

Finally, day three for Vanguard includes the final races for the 60m hurdles, and the women’s 5,000m and mile events as well as VU’s Kelsie Davis’ NAIA debut in the High Jump.

Vanguard’s schedule of events is listed below. See the NAIA website for a full event schedule and more immediate results.

Megan Williams	Allison Armando		Ashley Rodriguez
Chelsea Van Cott	Rebecca Sopp		Kelsie Davis

Thursday: March 5, 2009
6:45pm Women's DMR Semi (Megan Williams, Allie Armando, Ashley Rodriguez, Chelsea Van Cott)

Friday: March 6, 2009
1:20pm Men's 60m Hurdles Prelim (Aze Perkins)
2:05pm Women's Mile Semi (Megan Williams)
2:40pm Men's 60m Hurdles Semi (Aze Perkins)
3:25pm Women's 600m Semi (Ashley Rodriguez)
3:40pm Men's 600m Semi (Morgan Rose)
5:00pm Men's 1,000m Semi (Michael Hartanov)
6:40pm Women's 5,000m Semi (Rebecca Sopp)

Saturday: March 7, 2009
12:25pm Women's Mile Final (Megan Williams)
12:50pm Men's 60m Hurdles Final (Aze Perkins)
1:30pm Women’s High Jump (Kelsie Davis)
2:45pm Women's 5,000 Final (Rebecca Sopp)