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SMU at Carleton SMU at St. Olaf Saturday, April 22 |
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SMU's NCAA provisional-qualifying list doubles at Manitou Classic
NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Through the first three weeks of the outdoor track and field season, Saint Mary's University had earned one NCAA Division III Outdoor National Championships provisional qualifier in each of the three meets.
Saturday afternoon, their qualifying list doubled.
Thanks in large part to the performance of Emily Bartusek (Albert Lea, Minn.).
Bartusek stole the spotlight for the Cardinals at the St. Olaf Manitou Classic, breaking the school record in both the 200 and 400 — while also provisionally qualifying for the national championships in the 400.
Maria Roche (New Prague, Minn.) and Megan Mason (Rochester, Minn.) joined Bartusek — and previous qualifiers Ashley Luehmann (Lewiston, Minn.), Amanda Weinmann (Rochester, Minn.) and Autumn Valk (Appleton, Wis.) — on the NCAA's provisional list with their efforts in the 400 and high jump, respectively.
Bartusek won the 400 with her school-record time of 57.57, just two-hundreths of a second faster than Roche. Mason, meanwhile, punched her ticket for the NCAAs with a second-place jump of 1.67 meters in the high jump.
Bartusek also placed fourth in the 200 with her school record-setting time of 25.94, while Luehmann placed second in both the discus (39.75 meters) and the javelin (37.70) and was third in the shot put (12.95).
"It was another solid performance, no question about that," said SMU coach Kirk Nauman, who also got a fourth-place effort from Beth Cleveland (Wausau, Wis.) in the hammer (42.76), a fifth-place showing from Sarah Zweber (Elko, Minn.) in the steeplechase (12:40.00) and a sixth from Valk in the 400 hurdles (56.53). "Three national qualifiers and two more school records — that's a pretty good day's work."
While the women were busy shattering school records and expanding their provisional-qualifying list, the men were across town at the Carleton Relays — and while there weren't any school records broken, there were plenty of solid performances.
Chris Fisette (Elmhurst, Ill.) and Dan Gerber (Belvidere, Ill.) led the way for the Cardinal men, as Fisette placed fifth in the long jump (6.35) and seventh in the triple jump (12.31), while Gerber was sixth in both the 100 (11.11) and 200 (22.62).
"I'm very happy with the way the guys performed," said Nauman, who also got a third from the Cardinals' sprint medley relay team, and a seventh from the 4x100 relay. "Everything is coming together nicely. This was another step in the right direction for both teams."