Track and field sends 4 to nationals

The IU track and field squads will be sending four athletes to the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships this week, with the women’s squad sending three of those four athletes.\nFreshman Vera Neuenswander is the Big Ten champion in the women’s pole vault and is currently the top-ranked freshman in the nation, according to www.trackshark.com. Her outdoor season’s best of 4.12 meters, which she set in Bloomington on May 4 at the Billy Hayes Invitational, has her placed eighth overall in the nation. \nThough only a freshman, this competition will not be Neuenswander’s first chance at being part of an NCAA championship event. On March 10, Neuenswander participated in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, where she came into the meet ranked 14th and finished 12th. Neuenswander said she is hoping her experience at the indoor championships will help her during this meet, where she is seeded 10th.\n“It is exciting to be 10th, but I know at the same time that I can jump higher,” she said. “And going in knowing that anything can happen makes me more confident.”\nNeuenswander’s teammate, senior Jessica Gall, is also no stranger to national meets as she is a two-time cross-country All-American and competed at outdoor nationals last year. She will be competing in the meet in the 10,000-meter run. On May 11, Gall was crowned Big Ten champion, winning the 10,000-meter run, but it was her time of 33:54.65 at the Stanford Invitational on March 31 that has her ranked 22nd in the nation, according to trackshark.com. \n“(The experience) will definitely help,” Gall said. “I’ll know competition and I ran the 10k last year at nationals. It is a grueling race, but I have a great coach who has me peaking at the right time. And this being my last race for IU, I am really motivated.” \nThe last woman who will be representing IU on the national stage is senior Lorian Price. Price will be competing in the 100-meter hurdles at the event. Last weekend at the NCAA Mideast Regional, Price recorded two consecutive personal bests as she improved her qualifying times for the championships.\nFor the 100-meter hurdle preliminaries at the regional she ran a new best of 13.44 seconds, improving on her previous record of 13.56 seconds. Then for the finals, Price knocked even more time off of her best with a run of 13.42 seconds, good enough for eighth place at the regional and an at-large bid to participate at the national meet. Price will go into the meet seeded 24th.\nThe lone men’s competitor from IU will be sophomore Blayne Burkholder, who will be participating in the pole vault. Burkholder earned himself an automatic bid to compete by finishing third at the regional meet with a clearance of 5.06 meters. He will go into the meet seeded 24th with his personal best mark of 5.15 meters set on May 13, en route to earning a Big Ten championship.\nThe event, hosted by Sacramento State University in Sacramento, Calif., begins Wednesday and ends Saturday.