May 30, 2004
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - Junior Desiree Leek finished 4th in the 5,000m on Friday night and senior Jasmine Washington finished 5th in the 400m final on Saturday at the NCAA West Region Championship held at CS Northridge. Leek and Washington will both advance to the NCAA National Championship June 9th-12th in Austin Texas.
Leek ran a personal best 16:33.74 in the 5k to secure one of the top five automatic qualifying places to the NCAA meet. Gaucho teammate Cosette Smith finished 7th after leading a pack for third place for the first 7 ½ laps of the race. Leek moved into third with 5 laps to go and then a lap later BYU's Suzanna Logan took over third while Leek and Smith followed. With two laps to go Leek and Smith appeared to have a firm grasp on the last two qualifying positions as they opened up a lead on the 6th and 7th place runners. However on the final lap Oregon's Laura Harmon kicked all the way from 7th to 3rd just overtaking Leek for 4th at 16:33.17, Desiree Davila of Arizona State passed Smith and Logan for 5th place at 16:35.27, while an exhausted Smith faded to 7th at 16:46.10. Sara Bei of Stanford won in 16:12.26.
Smith will now have to wait and see if her season best of 16:33.13 is good enough to earn an at-large spot in the NCAA Championship field. The final list of qualifiers will be announced at noon on Tuesday June 1st.
It took another school record by Washington just to qualify for the final of the 400m on Friday. Washington was the 6th fastest qualifier with a lifetime best 53.37, her previous best was 53.58. In Saturday's final the senior from San Francisco was in 7th in the 9 woman final coming down the final stretch but dug down deep to overtake two more runners in the final 10m and grab the 5th and final qualifying spot at 53.39. Monique Henderson of UCLA won in 50.65.
|
|
 |
Sophomore Amy Haapanen finished a heartbreaking 6th in the shot put final on Saturday. Going into the final round Haapanen was just 1cm short of Northridge's Laura Sauao for 5th place. Haapanen threw 15.37m (50' 5.25") on her last attempt to equal her best mark in the competition to the centimeter, falling just 1cm shy of a trip to Nationals. Five of Haapanen's six throws cleared 50' in an amazingly consistent series. Sauao did improve to 15.47m (50' 9.25") on her final throw for fifth place. Jillian Camerena of Stanford won with a best of 55' 7.75".
Haapanen finished 9th in the discus throw on Friday with a best of 163' 7" and placed a disappointing 21st in the hammer at 171' 7". Haapanen still has an outside chance at an at-large spot in the NCAA meet with her seasonal bests in any one of her three throwing events.
Sophomore Heather Quinn finished 17th in the discus at 152' 10"and 32nd in the hammer at 158' 3". Sophomore Rebecca Richey finished 29th in the javelin at 128' 2".
Four top eight finishes earned the Gauchos 14 points and a 17th place finish in the team standings. UCLA won with 141 points. CS Northridge was the top Big West school finishing 11th with 24 points.
Washington will step into the blocks for the 400m prelims at 7:10pm CDT on Wednesday June 9th and Leek will line up for the start of the 5,000m prelims at 9:35pm CDT at the NCAA Championship in Austin.
