May 26, 2000
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Notre Dame men’s and women’s track and field teams will send nine of their members to the 2000 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, May 31 – June 3, in Durham, N.C.
First-time outdoor qualifiers include sophomore Liz Grow (New Braunfels, Texas), freshman Tameisha King (Mableton, Ga.), senior Tim Kober (Gillette, N.J.), senior Phil Mishka (Toledo, Ohio), sophomore Luke Watson (Stillwater, Minn.) and senior Marshaun West (Sikeston, Mo.). Senior Jennifer Engelhardt (Battle Creek, Mich.) and junior Ryan Shay (Central Lake, Mich.) will be making their second trip to the championship meet, while two-time All-American senior Alison Klemmer (Troy, Mich.) qualified for the third straight season in the 10,000 meters. With four members, the Irish women will be sending their largest contingent ever to the outdoor championships since becoming a varsity sport in 1991.
Grow qualified for the meet after breaking a three-year-old school record in the 400-meter race at the Georgia Tech Invitational last weekend with a time of 53.10. The 2000 BIG EAST indoor champion at 400 meters, Grow also qualified for the 1999 NCAA indoor championships in the same event as a freshman, placing 17th in the preliminaries.
King is the lone Irish freshman to qualify for the meet after jumping a school-record 21-1 1/2 en route to a runner-up finish in the women’s long jump at the BIG EAST outdoor championships. King is the first Irish women’s long jumper to qualify for the NCAA meet.
Kober and classmate Mishka will both participate in the 800 meters after earning All-America honors during the indoor season as a member of the school’s distance medley relay, which finished sixth. Kober ran a personal-best time of 1:48.48 at the Drake Relays, while Mishka recorded his NCAA qualifying time of 1:48.01 at Arizona State’s Baldy Castillo meet in late March.
Watson, who also earned All-America honors as a member of the school’s distance medley relay, qualified in the 3,000-meter steeplechase after improving his school-record time of 8:46.77 at last week’s Gatorade Twighlight Meet at Tennessee. Watson is the third Irish runner to participate at the NCAA meet in the steeplechase with the most recent being John Cowan, who placed 11th in 1995.
West, an indoor All-American in 1999, is just the second Notre Dame men’s long jumper and first since 1934, to qualify for the NCAA championships. A team co-captain, West broke James Patterson’s 15-year-old school record in the long jump (25-5 1/2) with a second-place leap of 25-8 at the BIG EAST championships.
Engelhardt, a two-time indoor All-American, enters next week’s championships with the ninth-best qualifying mark of 6-0 in the high jump, which she set at the Billy Hayes Invitational two weeks ago. A three-time BIG EAST champion in the outdoor high jump, she placed 19th overall at last year’s NCAA outdoor meet.
Shay is making his second trip to the NCAAs in track after earning All-America honors in 1999 in the 10,000 meters with a seventh-place finish. An All-American in cross country, he ran an NCAA automatic, a U.S. Olympic Trials and broke a 11-year-old school record with a time of 28:26.91 in the 10,000 at the Mt. SAC Relays. Shay’s qualifying time is the second-fastest in the country behind Stanford’s Brent Hauser (28:23.37).
Klemmer is running in her third straight NCAA championships after becoming the first Notre Dame women’s outdoor distance runner to achieve All-America status with a eighth-place in the 10,000 meters in 1998. Last season, Klemmer finished seventh overall in the same event to once again earn All-American honors. This season, she has the 16th-fastest qualifying time of 34:30.16, which she ran at the Stanford Invitational March 25.
2000 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
May 31 – June 3 in Durham, N.C.
All times are local and tentative.
Wednesday, May 31
Marshaun West, long jump (6:30 p.m.)
Alison Klemmer, 10,000 meters (9:25 p.m.)
Tim Kober, Phil Mishka, 800 semifinals (7:25 p.m.)
Luke Watson, steeplechase semifinals (8:15 p.m.)
Thursday, June 1
Jennifer Engelhardt, high jump (6:30 p.m.)
Tameisha King, long jump (7:00 p.m.)
Ryan Shay, 10,000 meters (9:20 p.m.)
Liz Grow, 400 meters semifinals (7:05 p.m.)
Friday, June 2
Tim Kober, Phil Mishka, 800 meters (7:05p.m.)
Luke Watson, steeplechase (8:20 p.m.)
Saturday, June 3
Liz Grow, 400 meters (6:55 p.m.)