UKTF Finishes East Prelims with 22 NCAA Qualifiers

TAMPA, Fla. – Twelve more Kentucky Track and Field Wildcats earned the top-12 finishes required to advance beyond the NCAA East Preliminary Championships on Saturday.

They took UK’s NCAA East Prelims qualification quantity to 22 – 13 women’s entries, nine men’s entries — that this weekend booked places on the plane to Eugene, Oregon where the NCAA Outdoor Championships finals will be held June 6-9.

They will join Tim Duckworth as Kentucky’s qualifiers to NCAAs as the reigning indoor heptathlon national champion will be the top seed in the decathlon. Scores posted during the regular season, similar to the qualifying procedure used for the NCAA Indoor Championships, determine multi-event qualifiers to NCAAs
 
The Wildcats qualified 12 from a possible 16 on Saturday. For the meet, UK had a pretty good 55-percent qualification rate as 22 of the initial 40 – 21 men’s, 19 women’s — East Prelims entries will travel to the West Coast to compete again, this time with team points on the line, starting in 11 days.
 
The UK women’s team’s qualification rate for the weekend was 68 percent (13 of 19). The UK men’s team had a 43-percent (nine of 21) success rate over the past three days, which agonizingly included three 13th-place finishes.
 
A year ago, UK qualified 22 entries – 16 women’s and six men’s plus Duckworth in the decathlon – out of the NCAA East Preliminary Championships, which it served as host institution for.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and Kianna Gray each qualified in two individual events plus two relays, running really impressive times in every event they entered.

 
Wildcats moving on to Eugene on Saturday (in order as it happened)
The UK men’s 4x100m relay of Daniel Roberts, Dwight St. Hillaire, Fred Dorsey III and Tim Duckworth ran well out of lane one, finishing with a time of 39.36Q, which was .01 off their season best. They took the third automatic qualifying place from heat two with the 10th fastest time overall.

The UK women’s 4x100m relay of Celera Barnes, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, Kayelle Clarke and Kianna Gray qualified to continue their NCAA title defense in Eugene winning heat one from lane one in a scintillating 42.49Q. They ran 42.30 at the Southeastern Conference Championships two weeks ago to take silver.

LSU was top qualifier in 42.42.
 
Sophomore Daniel Roberts earned his first trip to Eugene in the 110m hurdles, running 13.84Q (-0.1) on a wet track to take second in his heat. He had the ninth fastest time of the three quarterfinal races. Caleb Wilt missed out by one spot, measured in .06 seconds as he ran a PB 14.05.
 
Camacho-Quinn was top qualifier in the 100m hurdles taking control of her heat in the second half of the race to finish with a time of 12.90Q (-0.1).
 
Kentucky qualified all three of its women’s 200m entries, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (No. 7 – 22.73Q +0.5), Kianna Gray (No. 8 – 22.88Q +0.5) and Kayelle Clarke (No. 11 – 23.04q +0.5).
 
Marie-Josee Ebwea-Bile had the No. 2 triple jump qualifying mark of prelims, 44’6″/13.56m q (+0.0) to advance on to Eugene for the second year in a row. Ebwea-Bile took silver at the NCAA Championships last June.
 
Elijah Marta advanced on to Eugene out of the second of three javelin flights. His mark of 209’11″/13.56m was good for seventh place. More athletes qualified out of the lower-seeded flights than expected as rain picked up in the last flight significantly to hinder those throwers.
 
UK’s women’s 4x400m relay, running in an order of Faith Ross, Clarke, Camacho-Quinn and Gray for the first time this year, won heat three to advance automatically. Their time of 3:31.70Q was No. 2 out of the East Prelims.
 
Noah Castle and Nikolas Huffman both used personal bests (Huffman’s was an outdoor best only) to proceed on to Eugene in the shot put. Castle qualified in a second event for the weekend having also made it in the discus on Friday. His sixth-place mark of 64’6″/19.66m was a 1’4.5″ personal best, moving him to No. 4 on the UK all-time list.

Huffman’s 61’10.25″/18.85m improved his No. 9 mark on the UK outdoor all-time list by 1.75″. That was the margin by which Charles Lenford Jr. missed out by. His 61’1.25″/18.62m got him the infamous 13th-place finish.

Wildcats moving on to Eugene on Friday
St. Hillaire was the fastest 400m qualifier out of East Prelims in some style. The Southeastern Conference bronze medalist smashed the personal best he set just two weeks ago by half a second. He broke 45 seconds for the first time, running 44.55Q to move to No. 19 on the collegiate all-time list and lower his school record.
 
“From the beginning (of the season) qualifying for NCAAs was the plan,” St. Hillaire said. “To finally achieve it, it’s only good things from here. Just keep training and follow the plan.”
 
McLaughlin finished as top 400m hurdles qualifier from East Prelims. The reigning SEC Champion hit a hurdle coming off the turn for home, but recovered well — plus she was already ahead by a large margin – and finished in 55.50Q.
 
Kianna Gray and Celera Barnes both turned in their best 100m races on Friday to advance on to Eugene. Gray ran a really fast, albeit windy 11.02wQ, third fastest of the day. The junior advanced to Eugene in the 100m for the third year in a row.
 
Barnes broke Gray’s UK freshman record by .04, running a PB 11.16Q (+1.6) to finish seventh fastest of the quarterfinals.
 
“To be able to come back and do what I’m supposed to do, be out here for my team is a great feeling,” Gray said. “I was so happy to see Celera run like that. I ran out of the (mixed zone) tent when I heard her name announced to get a view of the results board so I could see her time. She PR’d so I was happy for her.”
 
Olivia Gruver needed to clear just one bar, doing so on her second attempt at 13’8.5″/4.18m q to earn the trip to Eugene where she’ll seek to defend her NCAA title in the pole vault. The junior qualified to the NCAA finals site for the third year in a row.
 
Katy Kunc advanced to Eugene for the second year in a row in the 3k steeplechase. She won heat one in a season best 9:58.03, breaking 10 minutes for the second time in her career.
 
Noah Castle earned a first NCAA berth, having placed 11th in the men’s discus with a mark of 177’11″/54.22m q, which he tossed on his first throw.

Wildcats moving on to Eugene on Thursday
For the second year in a row, Fred Dorsey dropped a big long jump from one of the first two flights – from which the low seeds based on season-best marks compete – to qualify to the NCAA finals site in the long jump.
 
The senior advanced to the NCAA Championships long jump for the third year in a row, using a mark of 25’1.25″/7.65m (+1.0).
 
Sophomore Ellen Ekholm needed to clear just two bars to book her trip to Eugene for the second year in a row. After clearing the first bar on her first try, she needed two attempts to get over 5’10.75″/1.80m, and that was all she needed.

Jacob Thomson concluded the night on the track, running a relatively solid 10k to advance comfortably with at fifth-place time of 29:22.27. He qualified for the NCAA 10k final for the third year in a row, having placed top five in each of those East semifinals.

Other near misses on Saturday
Latavia Coombs finished 13th in the women’s triple jump, missing by half an inch.

Caleb Wilt just missed the final qualifying place as his PB-tying 14.05 (-0.1) was just .06 slower than the last little “q” time.

The primer
The name of the game the weekend was qualifying on to Eugene, Oregon. The Wildcats competed at the NCAA East Preliminary Championships hosted by the University of South Florida running Thursday through Saturday.
 
UK had 40 entries at this week’s NCAA East Preliminary Championships.
 
The UK men’s team qualified 21 entries, while the UK women’s team qualified 19.
 
Additionally, Tim Duckworth – NCAA decathlon leader – became the first Wildcat to book his trip to the NCAA Championships finals site as the multi-events won’t be contested at the preliminary championships.

The format
The East and West regions are comprised of all Division I institutions in 25 states apiece for each of the two regions.
 
Twelve performers from each preliminary site advance to the NCAA Championships – hosted for the sixth straight year at Oregon’s Hayward Field – June 6-9. 
 
The East and West Preliminary Championship intended to have parallel schedules, although expected inclement weather in the late-May Florida afternoons this weekend have resulted in the meet program moving up earlier each day.
 
California State University, Sacramento hosted NCAA West Prelims the same days.
 
For each individual event contested at each of the preliminary sites, the top 48 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition.  For each relay event, the top 24 declared relay teams were accepted into the competition.
 
For the heptathlon and decathlon, the top 24 declared student-athletes in each event based on their position on the national descending-order list were accepted into the Championships. Heptathlon and decathlon are not contested at preliminary championships sites.
 
But as it relates to the NCAA Championships, qualifying entries into the preliminary championships is less significant than the number of entries who make it through prelims and advance to Eugene for the NCAA Championships.
 

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