July 26, 2005
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Less than a month before they suit up for the first time as members of the Notre Dame women’s cross country/track and field team, incoming freshmen Ramsey Kavan (Yankton, S.D./Yankton HS) and Mary Saxer (Lancaster, N.Y./Lancaster HS) have been named to the 2005 USA TODAY All-USA High School Track and Field Team, the newspaper announced Tuesday. It was the first time either student-athlete had been named to the prestigious squad, which was selected by Jack Shepard, editor of Track and Field News, based in part upon rankings in the USA TODAY and Track and Field News national lists, number of top performances, and head-to-head competition during the regular season and in major postseason meets. The team was divided into six 10-person groups, classified by events (springs, distances, hurdles, vertical jumps, horizontal jumps and throws).
Kavan is widely regarded as the finest distance runner ever produced by the state of South Dakota. She has won state championships at 800 meters, 1,600 meters, and 3,200 meters during her prep career in addition to garnering national recognition by being named Foot Locker first-team All-American, NHSAA All-American, and the South Dakota Sportswriter Female Prep Athlete of the Year two years in a row. Kavan’s performances helped lead the Yankton Gazelles to back-to-back Class AA state cross country championships and three consecutive ESD titles. She set new course records at the 2004 South Dakota AA Cross Country Championships, ESD Championship, USATF Dakotas Association Championship and the USATF Regionals, and she was third at the 2004 Foot Locker Cross Country National Championships and sixth at the 2003 Foot Locker Cross County National Championships. Kavan also was honored by the 80th Legislature of the State of South Dakota in 2004 for her excellence in cross country during her high school career.
Saxer is considered by most observers to be one of the country’s rising stars in women’s pole vault. During the course of the 2004-05 high school season, she broke her own high school national record (either indoor or outdoor) no less than nine times. A two-time All-American and New York state champion, Saxer made history earlier this year at the Dartmouth Relays in Hanover, N.H., when she became the first female prep athlete ever to clear 14 feet in the pole vault. In March, she set an American junior pole vault record at the Nike Indoor National Championships, topping out at 14 feet, two inches, also a world record for a female under 17. By comparison, the winning vault at both this year’s NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships was 14 feet, 1 1/4 inches. The 2005 National High School Indoor Athlete of the Year, Saxer also competed in the famed Millrose Games at New York’s Madison Square Garden back in February, matching up against several of the world’s top pole vaulters, including 2000 Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion Stacy Dragila.
The Notre Dame women’s cross country team, which finished fourth at the 2004 NCAA Championships and was ranked sixth nationally by FinishLynx, will open its season Sept. 9 at the Valparaiso Invitational. The Irish women’s track and field schedule has not yet been approved and will be released at a later date.
— ND —