Hoosiers look to qualify for NCAA meet

While some IU students are looking forward to spending their spring breaks on the beaches of Florida or Mexico, IU senior jumper Kyle Jenkins hopes to spend next weekend indoors in Arkansas. \nJenkins will be among a portion of track and field athletes competing in the Alex Wilson Invitational at the Loftus Center on Notre Dame’s campus. This will be his one last chance to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships held March 14-15 in Fayetteville, Ark. \nLast weekend, Jenkins competed in the Big Ten Championships, but finished second by 1 centimeter in the triple jump. Despite failing to win, the senior is confident he can jump a career-best of 15.86, the mark he said he will likely need to land him in Arkansas next week. \n“Where I need to jump and how I’ve been jumping, I’ll be there,” he said. \nAnother athlete who will likely need to set a career-best this weekend to qualify for NCAA’s is sophomore pole vaulter Vera Neuenswander. Neuenswander, who competed at the national meet in 2007, recorded a fourth-place finish at last weekend’s Big Ten meet – vaulting a season-best of 4.05 meters.\n“I hope I can jump a big height and get in,” she said. “I’ve been improving in every meet and hopefully this weekend will be the same way.”\nBoth Neuenswander and her freshman teammate Stephanie Chin will go after the automatic qualifying mark of 4.20 meters in the event. \nChin will return to the Loftus Center where she set a career-best and IU school record of 4.12 meters a month ago at the Meyo Invite. \nIn addition, a select group of athletes will also compete – athletes IU coach Ron Helmer said have good marks on the board and ones who will have the opportunity to improve on those performances. \n“I want them to finish indoors on a positive note,” he said. \nAmong the women will be recently crowned Big Ten Champion junior Audrey Smoot, who will compete in the 400-meter dash. Junior Molly Beckwith and sophomores Ashley Rhoades and Faith Sherrill will also travel to South Bend. \nIU junior Wendi Robinson will take the weekend off from competition because she is almost assured a spot in the national meet with her 5000-meter time of 16:16.23, which ranks ninth-best in the country. \nOn the men’s side joining Jenkins will be senior Paul Fearnow, juniors Evan Bardach, Tyler McCreary and Brennon Plotner, sophomores Jared Nuxoll and Chris Sackmann and freshman Andy Weatherford. \nEach year, a set number of athletes are selected to compete in the NCAA Championships – an equal number for men and women. \nGenerally, the selection committee automatically takes the top 14 individual events leaders and the top 10 relay teams. Next, they typically add 15th-best individual performer and the 11th-best relay team. From there, they look at different events and see if an athlete is already in the meet, and if they are, the committee skips them and goes down the list until the maximum number has been reached for the meet. \nThe selection committee will release the entries for the Indoor Championships March 10.