Runners Kroshus, Ferrell to compete in NCAAs

Fresh off their wins at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, senior Emily Kroshus and sophomore Cack Ferrell have their sights set even higher as they compete in the NCAA championships this weekend in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Ferrell will compete in the 3000-meter run and Kroshus will compete in the 5000m run. Both won these events at Heps. Ferrell also won the mile there and was named the female Athlete of the Meet.

In the NCAAs, Kroshus and Ferrell will compete against the toughest competition for indoor track this season.

"Arkansas is supposed to have a really great facility with a fast track, and the fields in the women's distances are loaded, so I'm sure the pace will be fast," Kroshus said. "We will get a chance to see where we stack up against the best in the country."

Kroshus qualified for the 5000m with a time of 16 minutes, 15.54 seconds, which will seed her 12th. Ferrell earned the 15th seed in the 3000m with a time of 9:20.89.

Both Kroshus and Ferrell provisionally qualified for the championships. The NCAA sets both a mark at which runners automatically qualify and at which they provisionally qualify. If the spots for the event are not filled by automatic qualifiers, then the NCAA invites the best of the provisional qualifiers to fill the remaining spots. The automatic time for the 5000m was 16:15 flat, which Kroshus missed by under a second. The time for the 3000m was 9:16 flat.

The top seed in both events will be junior Kim Smith from Providence. Smith ran the 3000m in 8:55.08, almost ten seconds better than the No. 2 seed Michaela Mannova from BYU. Her time in the 5000m is 15:18.54, over 35 seconds better than No. 2 seed Molly Huddle of Notre Dame.

Smith has been named Northeast Region Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association, and is a finalist for National Athlete of the Year.

Also competing in the 3000m is Penn senior Emily Logan, who snuck into the No. 16 seed with a time of 9:21.57.

For the men's team, senior Josh McCaughey just barely missed qualifying for the 35-lb. weight throw, missing the mark by only a centimeter. Senior John Kieliszak also barely missed qualifying in the mile run, falling just over a second short.

Outdoor season on the way

Both the men's and women's team will start their outdoor seasons over spring break. The men will compete in the Coastal Carolina Relays in Myrtle Beach, SC on March 20. The women's team will travel out to California, to compete at Long Beach against Long Beach State, UCLA, and other California schools.

Both teams will train during the week, which will culminate with the meet during the final weekend.

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These meets will present the teams with a chance to get back into the swing of things, since many tracksters last competed at Heps on Feb. 28-29.

"The meet will be a 'scrimmage' meet as the stakes are not very high and many athletes will not be running their specialty events," junior Alexis Tingan said. "The meet is more of an extra training day that will serve as the finale of a hard week of Spring Break training."

The meets will serve as building blocks for the outdoor season and allow coaches and players to see what level they are on.

"The meet offers a wide range of events and many relays that we are not accustomed to having in meets other than Penn Relays," Ferrell said, "so there will be plenty of events into which the team can enter."

The men's team is coming off a Heps Championship, and hopes to repeat this result in the spring. The women placed second at Heps and hope to improve and take the title for the outdoor season.

Coming up after Spring Break, both the men and women will host the Sam Howell Invitational on April 3 at Weaver Track.