The ACU track and field program will attempt to add to the ten athletes that provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championship Meet Friday and Saturday as the team travels in two separate directions.
The multievents athletes – Parker Petty, Matthew Stark and Cassie Brooks will travel northwest to Colorado Springs, Col. to compete at the Air Force Combined Events Meet at the Air Force Academy while the remaining track and field athletes will be in Albuquerque, N.M. for the New Mexico Invitational.
“The goal for all of these meets is still to qualify as many athletes, either provisionally or automatically, for Nationals,” head coach Roosevelt Lofton said. “That goal and purpose will remain the same until the national meet is upon us. It’s all about representation.”
The ACU men’s team enters the meets ranked No. 17 by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association Poll, while the women are slated No. 24, two spots below their preseason No. 24 ranking.
“We don’t care a whole lot about those rankings or place a lot of importance on them,” senior thrower Nick Jones said. “All we care about is competing to the best of our ability. If we do that, we will see the results we’re shooting for as a program.”
Petty and Stark have to score 4600 points or higher in the heptathlon to provisionally qualify, and 5,152 points to clinch a spot at the national meet.
“This is an important weekend for us,” Stark said. “We really need to compete at a high level and leave all that we have on the track.”
Brooks, the lone representative for the women’s team in Colorado Springs, Col., has to know 3,300 or more points in the pentathlon to provisionally qualify and 3,813 to join Nick Jones and Amanda Ouedraogo at the indoor national meet. She has already provisionally qualified as a part of the 4×400 meter relay.
Sprinter Jordan Geary currently holds the nation’s tenth fastest time in the 400-meter run of 49 seconds last weekend in Lubbock en route to provisionally qualifying.
Hurdler Dennis Bain ranks in the nation’s top 20 in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.18 seconds, and Lexus Williams echoed Bain with her time of 8.78.
“For those who have already qualified, now is the time to work on improvement,” Lofton said. “If we can post better times and put ourselves in better standing, that will be a positive for all of those who have already qualified.”
The ACU men’s 4x400m relay of senior Paris Robertson, Osei Allyene-Forte, Banjo Jayesimi and Geary recorded the seventh fastest NCAA DII mark at 3:18.38, while Brooks and her team, which was composed of Shennae Steele, Ayesha Rumble and Karla Hope posted a top-10 time of 3:54.61.
Steele and Robertson are also provisional qualifiers in the 60-meter dash with respective top times of 7.72 and 6.91, both of which were posted at the Air Force Academy in December.
