2004 NCAA West Regional Meet Schedule
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May 27, 2004

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -

Nine Gaucho women will represent UCSB at the NCAA West Regional Championship to be held Friday and Saturday at CS Northridge. The top five finishers in each event will earn a trip to the NCAA National Championship at Asutin, Texas June 9-12. Amy Haapanen, Desiree Leek, Cosette Smith and Jasmine Washington all rank among the top ten in their event going into the Regional Championship.

Haapanen, a sophomore from Manteca, has the fifth best mark in the hammer at 196' 2", ranks 7th in the shot put at 52' 0", and 8th in the discus at 169' 1" going into the meet. All three marks are UCSB school records and her hammer mark is a Big West Conference record.

Washington, a senior from San Francisco, is seeded 7th in the 400m with her school record 53.58. Smith a junior from Manhattan Beach, is 6th in the 5,000m (16:33.13) and Leek, a junior from La Jolla is 7th in the same event at 16:35.22. Smith finished 10th in the 5,000m at the 2003 Regional Chmpionship.

2004 marks the second year the NCAA will use the regional format to qualify for the NCAA Championships. The top five finishers in each event at the four regional meets will receive automatic berths to the NCAA meet at Austin. At-large qualifiers, approximately 6-8 per event, will be added to the auto qualifying fields of 20 per event, based on the top marks during the season of the remaining non-qualifiers.

Trials for the running events take place on Friday May 28th begining at 3pm while finals for the field events start at 8am on Friday with the women's hammer. The women's 5,000m final is Friday evening at 7:10pm. The rest of the running event finals get underway at 3pm on Saturday, while the field event finals continue on Saturday begining at 8:30am with the men's javelin.

Sophomore Lauren Christman is ranked 12th in the 1,500m at 4:27.21. Christman will run in the second qualifying heat of the 1,500m, the top 12 from the two heats will advance to Saturday's finals.

Other UCSB regional qualifiers with their ranking and mark in parenthesis, include freshman Devon Tracy in the high jump (T16th, 5' 8"), junior Rebecca Richey in the javelin (18th, 146' 11"), senior Desiree DeJesus in the steeplechase (26th, 10:51.68) and sophomore Heather Quinn in the discus (26th, 155' 4") and hammer (37th, 174' 2").