March 13, 2014
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — After a successful first run at the Atlantic Coast Championships and a bronze medal for each team, members of the men’s and women’s track and field teams are traveling down to Albuquerque, N.M., for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship. Hosted by the University of New Mexico, events will begin tomorrow, Mar. 14 at the Albuquerque Convention Center and run through Saturday, Mar. 15.
The Irish have been down in New Mexico for the past few days already, as all of the student-athletes are on their spring break.
“We’ve got 13 kids who have the potential to be All-Americans, so hopefully we’ll bring home quite a few,” says head coach Joe Piane. “Everybody seems to be pretty fired up. We’re really very excited.”
Day one holds plenty of action for Notre Dame, as everyone will be competing with the exception of the 4x400m relay team.
Junior Jade Barber has the ninth fastest qualifying seedtime in a field of 16 athletes in the women’s 60m hurdles. She won the gold in the event at the ACC Championship with a time of 8.19. The semifinals of this event will take place at 7:35 p.m. on Friday, with the finals starting at 6:30 p.m. (MT) on Saturday.
Seniors Kelly Curran, Alexa Aragon and Michelle Brown and sophomores Danielle Aragon and Margaret Bamgbose are also making the trip to the NCAA Championship. Four of the five athletes will compete in the women’s distance medley relay, which will be the last event on Friday with a 9:30 p.m. (MT) start time.
Junior Chris Giesting and senior Patrick Feeney will compete side by side in the men’s 400m dash after coming in first (Giesting with 46.43) and second place (Feeney with 46.54) at the ACCs. The semifinals of their event will kick off at 6:55 p.m. (MT) tomorrow, and if they qualify for the finals, they will run again on Saturday at 6:40 p.m. (MT).
Fifth-year student Jeremy Rae will also run Friday in the semifinals of the mile race. He had the fifth fastest qualifying time with his 3:57.25 performance at the Meyo Invitational last month. The men’s mile semifinal is the first track event of the meet, taking place at 6 p.m. (MT) tomorrow.
Rae and Feeney are joined by seniors Nick Happe, J.P. Malette and Harvey Smith and freshman Jacob Dumford as the potential athletes for the men’s distance medley relay. Four of the athletes will compete in the event at 9:15 p.m. (MT) Friday.
Live results of the meet will be available on RecordTiming.com and the meet will be streamed live on ESPN3 on Mar. 14 starting at 5:55 p.m. (MT) and Mar. 15 starting at 5:50 p.m. (MT). Results will also be posted after each day here on UND.com.
–Lauren Chval, Media Relations Assistant
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