EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – Members of the SIUE track and field program will use this weekend as a final chance to qualify for NCAA West Preliminaries in Austin, Texas in two weeks.
Five Cougar athletes will be competing at the Georgia Tech Invitational in Atlanta, which begins Friday at 6 p.m. and resumes Saturday at 1 p.m.
Four more athletes will travel to Emporia, Kan., for the Sam Williams Twilight Qualifier at Emporia State. Competition begins Saturday at 3 p.m.
Lastly, Aftan Noon will compete at the Dr. Keeler Track & Field Meet at North Central College in Naperville, Ill. Track events will begin at 4 p.m. Friday.
"This weekend will have a lot of moving parts thanks to the support from our administration," Head Coach Kareem Jackson said.
Heading to Georgia Tech will be Ahmad Evans, Braxton Klavins, and Josh Thomas for the men's team, as well as LaDonna Caston and Jessica Oranika for the SIUE women.
Evans will be competing in the men's 100 and 200 meters, Klavins will compete in the 200 and 400, and Thomas will take part in the 400 meter hurdles.
On the women's side, Caston will be competing in the 100 meter hurdles and Oranika will run in the 200 and 400 meters.
Traveling to Emporia State will be Darius Smith and Jamil Mashni for the men, along with Colleen McDonough and Elizabeth Hampl for the Cougar women.
Smith will compete in the men's 100 and 200 meters, while Mashni will throw in the shot put.
Meanwhile, Hampl and McDonough will both compete in the women's hammer throw with McDonough also competing in the shot put.
Noon will run in the women's 800 meters and 1,500 meters at North Central.
These meets give us one last chance to qualify for national championships," Jackson added. "There's going to be great competition at each one of these meets and it's going to come down to the athletes' individual efforts to reach their goals."
To qualify for NCAA Preliminaries, athletes must rank in the top 48 regionally in a given event.
Heading into the weekend, Evans and Smith rank 15th and 45th, respectively, in the 100 meters. Evans also sits at 36th regionally in the 200 meters, while Klavins is currently 63rd in the 400 meters. Thomas is 56th in 400 meter hurdles and Mashni is 57th in the shot put.
On the women's side, Oranika is 63rd regionally in the 400 meters and has already qualified for USA Junior Championships in June. Caston is 51st in the 100 meter hurdles, and Noon is 68th in the 800 and 78th in the 1,500. McDonough and Hampl are 38th and 48th in the hammer throw, respectively, while McDonough is 68th in the shot put.
