IU advances 4 to NCAA Championships in California

Despite sending 25 athletes to the NCAA Mideast Regional during Memorial Day weekend, the IU track program will only have four athletes to cheer on at the NCAA National meet.\nThe lone competitor on the men’s side will be sophomore Big Ten champion Blayne Burkholder. Burkholder won the pole vault competition at the Big Ten outdoor championships and followed that performance with a third-place finish at the regional, earning an automatic bid to compete at nationals. \n“This has been a great experience for Blayne,” IU assistant coach Jake Wiseman said in a statement. “He has found a really good rhythm and has been able to progress throughout the outdoor season. The trip to nationals will be a great experience for him as a sophomore.”\nBurkholder cleared 5.06 meters at the regional, but his personal best of 5.15 meters has him seeded 24 for the national meet.\nBurkholder was the only athlete to earn an automatic bid for nationals over the weekend for either team.\nSenior Lorian Price ran a personal best in the 100-meter hurdles preliminaries on the first day of competition. Her time of 13.44 seconds placed her fifth in IU history. She then came back for the finals the next day and improved that time. Taking 0.02 seconds off her time then made her fourth and fifth place all-time at IU. The time also earned Price an at-large bid to represent IU at the national meet.\nPrice will have two other teammates joining her at the national meet.\nSenior Jessica Gall did not have a chance to improve on her season’s best time in the 10,000-meter run last weekend because there were not enough competitors for a full heat. But her season’s best time of 33:54.65 in the run on March 31 at the Stanford Invitational provisionally qualified her for the national meet. Gall is the 10,000-meter Big Ten champion and will be seeded 16 at the national meet.\nVera Neuenswander is the top-ranked freshman in the nation and a Big Ten pole vault champion. She only cleared 3.81 meters, placing her ninth at the regional. But Neuenswander’s mark of 4.12 meters cleared on May 4 in Bloomington at the Billy Hayes Invite earned her the final at-large bid for nationals. She will go into the meet seeded 10.\nThese four IU athletes will compete beginning with the pole vault qualifying round at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 6 at the national meet, hosted by Sacramento State University in Sacramento, Calif.