Qualifiers head to South Bend for meet

After a brilliant performance in the women’s Big Ten championships, freshman pole vaulter Vera Neuenswander was named Big Ten freshman of the year.\nNeuenswander set a Big Ten record with a vault of 4.11 meters. The jump not only set a personal best for Neuenswander, but also broke a school record of 3.91 meters set by Emily Tharp in 2002. Neuenswander attributes her training to her success.\n“It was mostly everything coming together for me at the right time,” Neuenswander said. “And fortunately it just happened to be at the Big Tens.”\nWith her jump, Neuenswander vaulted herself into an 11th national ranking – the highest ranking freshman in the nation. She also provisionally qualified for nationals. \nNeuenswander’s coach Jake Wiseman said the pole vault competition he watched was one of the best he has ever seen, because of Neuenswander’s competitiveness.\n“She’s a competitor, that’s the main thing about Vera,” Wiseman said. “She didn’t know she had broken the school record; she didn’t know she had broken the conference record; she didn’t know she was now the number one freshman in the country; none of this was obvious. She just went out and competed, she forgot about what was happening – she just wanted to win.”\nNeuenswander finished second to Mallory Peck of Purdue at the Big Tens. The two cleared the same height, but Neuenswander had more attempts. In the competition, she vaulted 13 times, which according to Wiseman is astonishing in its own right, and really speaks of her desire to compete.\n“In a normal competition, you would only want to jump somewhere around six or eight times,” Wiseman said.\nWomen’s interim head coach Judy Wilson was very pleased with the spark she got from her freshman.\n“Vera had a rough meet the weekend before and was upset,” Wilson said. “We talked about that, and at this meet she got everything going for us. It’s great for Vera, and great for our program.”\nThe women’s team finished eighth, which is an improvement from last year. On day one, the Hoosiers scored 18 points, one shy of their total for the entire Big Tens last year.\n“We had women qualify for the finals on the second day in every event except for the 60-meter dash,” Wilson said. “Last year, we hardly had anyone run on the second day.”\nFifteen of the 27 athletes that participated for the Hoosiers at the meet were either freshmen or sophomores, Wilson said. \nThe top athletes from both the men’s and women’s sides will be heading up to South Bend this weekend for the Notre Dame qualifiers. The meet will primarily be used for the athletes who will be attending nationals in Fayetteville, Ark. \n“We’re just keeping it to the athletes who provisionally qualified for and who still can put up better times for Arkansas,” Wilson said.