Ekholm, Peare Qualify Day One at NCAA East Prelims

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Southeastern Conference High Jump Champion Ellen Ekholm as well as Matt Peare advanced to the NCAA Finals site as banner carriers for the Kentucky Track and Field Teams on Thursday, the first of the three-day NCAA East Preliminary Championships.
 
Six more Wildcats advanced from the first round into quarterfinal races that will run Friday at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium.
 
Ekholm earned one of the East Prelims’ 12 available places in the NCAA Outdoor Championships (finals site) high jump field in Austin, Texas. She cleared at 5’10.75″/1.80m on her second attempt after getting over on first tries at 5’7″ and 5’8.75″. At that point she was tied for fourth and the field was already whittled down to the 12 who earned their trips to NCAAs so they stopped jumping.

The junior made the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the third year in a row.

Peare cleared an outdoor PB 17’5″/5.31m on his second attempt, which was enough be amoung the 12 men’s pole vaulters remaining and stop jumping while tied for seventh with just one miss on his first attempt at that height. The sophomore made the NCAA Championships for the first time.
 
He moved to No. 2 on the UK outdoor all-time PV list, a half an inch from the outdoor school record. His indoor PB is 2.75″ higher, achieved at the SEC Indoor Championships earlier this year, is the absolute (indoor/outdoor) school record.
 
Thursday qualifiers into quarterfinal races
Faith Ross and Masai Russell started the day on the track for UK by getting big “Q” automatic qualifying places out of the first round and into the 400m hurdles quarterfinals. Ross ran 57.77Q, second fastest of the 24 qualifiers, and Russell ran 58.38Q, seventh best.
 
SEC Silver Medalist Kianna Gray cruised to the fourth-best women’s 100m big Q, running 11.34Q (-0.9) to win her heat, and Celera Barnes advanced, 11th fastest in 11.44Q (-0.4).
 
Chloe Abbott scorched her heat running a personal best 51.44Q to improve her No. 2 mark on the UK outdoor all-time 400m list and advance to the Friday quarterfinal with the top time.

SEC Silver Medalist Dwight St. Hillaire ran 45.94Q, seventh best of the first round, to move on to the quarterfinal, where 12 spots in the NCAA Championships field will be up for grabs.
 
Pre-meet primer
Kentucky entered 45 spots in the NCAA East Preliminary Championships.
 
The UK women’s entered 25 and the men’s team sent 20 entries to the meet.
 
The UK women’s team is ranked No. 4 and the Wildcat men are No. 21 in the latest edition of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association computer rankings.

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 at Texas’ Mike A. Myers Stadium June 5-8 in Austin, Texas.
 
The East and West Preliminary Championship intended to have parallel schedules. California State University, Sacramento will host 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.
 
How to watch
NCAA track and field fans can watch a live stream of the NCAA Division I East and/or West Preliminary Championships as FloTrack Pro subscribers. The subscription will include access to all FloTrack live broadcasts, video on-demand from all events, documentaries, technique videos and more. Coverage of the preliminary competitions will be available May 23 – 25 at www.flotrack.org. 
 

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