4 athletes qualify for regional competition

The track-and-field squads packed up and moved west to kick off their outdoor season at the 33rd annual Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.\nEven though the last two weeks have been intense training for the Hoosiers, four athletes posted regional qualifying times.\nThe regional invite is an event where athletes try to qualify for nationals. The top five finishers in each event at the regional qualify for nationals. The sixth- and seventh-place finishers are thrown into an “at large” pool from which they can be selected from based on their times.\nSenior Jessica Gall provisionally qualified for the regional invite with a personal best time of 33:54.65 in the 10,000-meter run. Gall was on pace for the school record with six laps left in the run, but ended up second all-time at IU. She finished 16th in the event.\n“She (Gall) has been sick for the last two weeks or so,” women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson said. “So we were not sure what to expect from her, but her time should be good enough for nationals.”\nAlso on the women’s side, senior Courtney Johnson posted a regional qualifying mark. Johnson ran a time of 13.98 seconds in preliminaries for the 100-meter dash. In the finals she posted her qualifying mark of 13.63 seconds. \nThe men’s side also had two qualifiers for the regional meet. Sophomore Jordan Kyle ran a personal best 14:03.83 in the 5,000-meter run, qualifying and finishing second on the day. Freshman Eric Werskey posted a toss of 16.85 meters in the shot put, finishing fifth in the event.\n“To come out qualify for regionals is no small task,” throwers coach Wil Fleming said. “His technique was good, but from all the lifting we have been doing, you can tell he didn’t have as much pop in his throws. But this performance definitely bodes well for Eric’s outdoor season.”\nThe majority of IU throwers were not in California. They had a trip to Purdue in West Lafayette, where they competed unattached to IU in the Purdue Mike Poehlein Invitational. Freshman Faith Sherrill competed in the hammer throw for the first time in her career. Sophomore Paul Fearnow cleared his personal best by six meters.\n“Paul’s throw is great. This is his third year throwing, so we can expect a lot of good things from him,” Fleming said. “The results this weekend are pleasing because we have been lifting hard for the last two weeks. They (the throwers) have been really beat up.”