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The University of Utah Athletics
Ten Utes to Compete at NCAA Track and Field Regionals
5/26/2009 12:00 AM | Track & Field
May 26, 2009
SALT LAKE CITY - The University of Utah track & field team will send 10 student-athletes in six different events to the 2009 NCAA West Regional Championships Thursday through Saturday in Eugene, Ore.
The top-five finishers in each individual event will move on to the NCAA National Championships at John McDonnell Field in Fayetteville, Ark., June 10-13. Athletes also have the opportunity to earn an at-large selection based on their performances during the season.
Last Time Out
Utah wrapped up the 2009 Mountain West Conference Championships at the Louis S. Madrid Track Complex in Laramie, Wyo., with a fifth-place finish. The Utes earned a total of 76 points, improving from last year's sixth-place finish (58 points). Utah athletes captured saw three event championships and recorded 11 top-five finishes at the conference meet.
Shapard Earns Three-Peat
Senior Chelsea Shapard (Park City, Utah) won her third straight conference title in the 400-meter hurdles and improved her personal record and regional-qualifying time to 57.88 last Saturday at the conference meet. In Friday's preliminaries, Shapard led the event after turning in a meet-best performance of 59.75 seconds to finish .37 seconds ahead of TCU's Meaghan Peoples. Chelsey Kaplar (Alpine, Utah) finished seventh in the event with a time of 1:02.23.
Record-Breaking Utes
Shapard and Kaplar then joined Whitney Wellington (Surrey, B.C.) and Ashley Patterson (Edmonton, Alberta) in Utah's 4x400-meter relay at the conference meet to break another school record and finish with a regional-qualifying time of 3:38.96, placing third in the meet. Haley McAllister-Birkeland will serve as the alternate for the relay.
Hammerin' Utes
Sarah Grimm (Salt Lake City, Utah) won the hammer throw event with an effort of 197'7" to take the title by 3'4" over her teammate Josefin Berg (Osthammar, Sweden), who finished as the runner-up with a mark of 193'3".
"Obviously, we were really happy with our hammer throw performance," Utah head coach Kyle Kepler said. "Any time you can finish 1-2 in an event at the conference level, you know you're doing a good job. This is a tribute to [throws coach] Tapio [Kuusela] and how much work everyone has put into the program."
"Rokin'" the Pole Vault
Klaudia Rokossa (Munster, Germany) qualified for the NCAA regional meet with a season-best height of 12'7.5," good for a fourth-place finish at the MWC Championships.
Iverson Takes MWC High Jump Crown
Freshman Langley Iverson (Reno, Nev.) earned all-conference recognition this week as she captured the high jump at the MWC Championships, clearing 5' 8.75." It marks her first career conference crown as well as a new personal record and a new regional-qualifying mark.
DiGrazia Digs In
Chelsea DiGrazia (Elko, Nev.) finished sixth in the 1,500-meter run at the MWC Championships after crossing the finish line in a regional-qualifying time of 4:39.53. DiGrazia qualified for the final race after running in the preliminary round after recording a time of 5:00.76 last Friday.
Players Mentioned
Throws
/ Track & Field
Jumps
/ Track & Field
Hurdles/Sprints
/ Track & Field
Sprints
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