NCAA championship bound

The IU track and field teams are sending large contingents to the NCAA Championships this weekend. A total of 13 athletes left early Monday for Sacramento, Calif.\nThe women's squad traditionally sends a core of sprinters and jumpers to the national meet. This year is no different, with three sprinters, one jumper and a sprinter/jumper making the trip. \nSenior All-Americans Rachelle Boone and Danielle Carruthers lead a strong 4x100-meter relay team that finished in second place at the Mideast Regional meet two weeks ago. The squad is rounded out by sophomore Ara Towns and senior Rose Richmond. \nBoone will also compete in the 100- and 200-meter events. She is a returning All-American in the 100 and was second in the 200 at this year's NCAA Indoor Championships. She broke the 200 stadium record at the Regional with a career-best and school-record time of 22.93 seconds. Carruthers, a perennial All-American hurdler, also will compete in her signature event, the 100-meter hurdles. She is last year's NCAA runner-up and will look to win her first ever national title. \nTowns solidified her first individual national appearance at the Regional where she automatically qualified with a 5th-place finish. She also earned All-American status as a member of last year's relay.\nRichmond, another relay All-American, also will compete in the long jump and will look to take the top spot after finishing second indoors. \nThree Hoosiers have the luxury of focusing on only one event. Junior transfer Lauren Chesnut will make her second trip to the NCAA Championships in the triple jump. Senior Irina Kharun, whose father was an Olympic javelin thrower for their native Ukraine, currently holds the top performance in the country. At the Regional meet, she broke stadium and school records and will be gunning for victory. \nMaking her first trip to Nationals is junior Audrey Geisler, who looks to become IU's first female All-American in the steeplechase, an event that was reserved for men until recently. After breaking the Big Ten record with a personal best of 10:14 and automatically qualifying for nationals, she has an excellent chance of achieving this feat. \nThe men's team is sending its largest contingent of athletes to the championships in years. Three distance runners will make the trip, something that hasn't happened at IU in nearly a quarter century. Sophomore All-American John Jefferson, his freshman twin brother Sean and junior Tom Burns are set to take on the country's best in the 1,500, 5,000 and 3,000 steeplechase, respectively. John was the indoor runner-up in the mile and currently holds the second fastest time in the country at 3:41.53, and he looks to be kicking for the win. \nIU also qualified senior All-American transfer Adam Judge in the hammer throw event and senior Patrick Miller in javelin. Judge posted the best throw of all regions in his victory in Columbus, Ohio, after breaking the Big Ten record two weeks prior and will be in the hunt for the top slot. Miller automatically qualified by unleashing a personal best on his last attempt at the Regional and hopes to earn All-America status. \nAll-American sophomore jumper Aarik Wilson qualified in both the long and triple jumps at the Regional. He will attempt to improve over last year's runner-up finish in the triple. At the Regional, Wilson was hindered by a sore foot. The injury persisted, and an examination over the weekend revealed a stress fracture. However, his chance at victory will push him to compete despite the injury. \nSeveral of these athletes have at least one more meet after the NCAA Championships. Boone, Carruthers, Geisler, Richmond, Chestnut, Kharun, Judge, Wilson, John Jefferson and senior triple jumper Hasaan Reddick will return to California June 19-22 to compete in the USA Track and Field Championships at Stanford University. If any of them finish in the top three in their event they will go on to compete on the world stage at the IAAF World Championships in Paris.