Hawkeyes Head to Iowa State and Notre Dame

March 1, 2010

THIS WEEK – The Hawkeyes will have one last weekend to earn qualifying marks before the NCAA Championships. The squads will split between two meets this weekend, with the women heading to Ames, IA, for the NCAA Qualifier, Saturday Mar. 6 and the men heading to South Bend, IN, for Notre Dame’s Alex Wilson Invite on Mar. 5 and 6. Events in Ames are slated to start at 10:30 a.m. CST. Friday events at Notre Dame will begin at 6:00 p.m. and Saturday events will begin at 9:00 a.m. Iowa currently has 11 athletes qualified for the NCAA Championships.

LAST TIME OUT – BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIPS – The University of Iowa track squads competed at the 2010 Indoor Big Ten Championships this past weekend. The men finished fifth with 56 points and the women placed ninth with 36. The respective host teams came out on top, with Minnesota earning the men’s title with 160.5 points and Penn State winning the women’s with 111.

PROVISIONAL QUALIFIERS – On Friday, the women’s distance medley relay team of sophomores Betsy Flood, McKenzie Melander, and juniors Tiffany Hendricks and Lauren Hardesty met the provisional qualifying mark with their third place finish of 11:25.01. This mark ranks third all-time at Iowa. Additionally, Hardesty hit the provisional qualifying mark in Sunday’s mile (4th, 4:41.97), a mark that ranks third in the Iowa record books.

5,000 CLUB – Seniors Dan Rolling and Frank Prill performed well in the weekend’s heptathlon, with Rolling setting a school record (10th, 5,205 points) and Prill ranking third all-time at Iowa (15th, 5,015 points). They are only the second and third athletes in Iowa history to break the 5,000 point mark, after Ryan Niver in 2008.

RECORD SETTERS – Junior Bethany Praska performed well in Sunday’s 600-meter finals (4th, 1:29.35), earning a collegiate-best mark that ranks second all-time at Iowa. Senior Caleigh Bacchus’ high jump finish (5th, 5-9 1/4, 1.76m) and freshman Kelsey Taylor’s weight throw finish (19th, 53-7 3/4, 16.35m) both rank fourth all-time at Iowa.

Freshman Jordan Mullen placed fifth in the 60-meter hurdles (8.02), a collegiate-best that ranks third all-time at Iowa. Junior Graham Valdes 6-11 (2.11m) sixth-place finish in the high jump ties his collegiate-best, which ranks seventh in the Iowa record books. Sophomore Ryan Lamparek now ranks seventh all-time at Iowa in the weight throw, following his eleventh-place 60-5 1/4 (18.42m) toss Sunday

UP NEXT – Iowa finishes the indoor season with the NCAA Championships in Fayetteville, AK on Mar. 12-13.

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