Women's trio falls short of NCAA Championships

What might have been a captivating weekend for three Hoosiers who qualified provisionally for the NCAA Championships ended up never coming to fruition.\nThe championships for women's indoor track, which will be held in Fayetteville, Ark., Friday and Saturday, will be without any Hoosier flavor as the three provisional qualifiers from IU did not qualify for the national meet. \nJuniors Stacey Clausing, Jessica Gall and Courtney Johnson were the eligible athletes that will not see any action.\n"The declaration lists for NCAAs were posted last night and my time wasn't quite fast enough for me to get into the championship meet this year," Gall said.\nThere are two ways athletes can qualify for the NCAA Championships. One way to qualify is to meet an automatic qualifying mark or time, set by the NCAA for each event, that guarantees qualification for the season's championships. \nThe other way to qualify is through a provisional qualifying time, a slightly less dubious mark to obtain than the automatic qualifying time. However, a provisional qualifying time does not ensure that the athlete will be able to compete. Provisional qualification depends on other provisional qualifying times from other athletes in the country, as only a certain amount are allowed to be selected. This is precisely what happened to Clausing, Gall and Johnson.\n"This is a very strong year for female distance running nationally," Gall said. "Also, it is much harder to get to NCAAs in indoor track versus outdoor track because they limit the field sizes in indoor due to the smaller track with tighter turns."\nThe Hoosiers must now shift their attention toward attempting to compete at a high level for the outdoor season.\nThe first meet of the outdoor season for the Hoosiers is the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., on March 24. They will have their sights set on returning to the golden state for the outdoor NCAA Championships in Sacramento, Calif.