June 1, 2004

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -

Final List of Women's NCAA Qualifiers

Sophomore Amy Haapanen was relieved to find out she was selected today as an at-large qualifier to the NCAA National Championship in Austin Texas June 9th-12th. She will join Gaucho teammates senior Jasmine Washington and junior Desiree Leek who both secured automatic qualifying bids to the national meet at the West Regional Championship last weekend.

Haapanen's chance to make the national meet appeared to fall short at the conclusion of the women's shot put on Saturday at CS Northridge. She finished in sixth place just four inches behind the 5th and final automatic qualifier Laura Sauao of CS Northridge. Today the NCAA filled out the fields with best remaining non-automatic qualifiers from the four regional meets and Haapanen was the last selection in all three of her events, making the shot, discus and hammer, based on her season bests of 52', 169' 1", and 196' 2".

Unfortunately the news wasn't so good for junior Cosette Smith who was under consideration for an at-large berth in the 5,000m, after her seventh place regional finish. The final time qualifier accepted to the 2004 national 5k field had a season best of 16:22.94, while Smith's '04 best was 16:33.13.

Haapanen's first event at the NCAA meet will be the discus throw qualifying at 4:00pm CDT on Wednesday June 9th.