Central Michigan University Athletics
Thomas Heads to Arkansas For NCAA Indoor Championships
3/8/2006 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
March 8, 2006
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MOUNT PLEASANT - The Central Michigan University women's track and field squad will have one representative at this year's NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. Senior Tamera Thomas qualified in two events, the 60m hurdles and the pentathlon, and will travel to the University of Arkansas to compete on Friday and Saturday, March 10-11, in search of an indivdual NCAA title in those two events. It's the first time in her career as a Chippewa that Thomas has qualified for the indoor national championships meet.
"We're excited that Tamera has the opportunity to compete against the best in the country this weekend at the NCAA Championships," CMU head coach Karen Lutzke said. "I know she is looking forward to challenging herself against the highest level of competition, and we believe that she has the potential to do great things at this meet."
Thomas got into the NCAA meet in the hurdles by running a new career-best and school record 8.17 in the finals of the 60m hurdles at the Alex Wilson Invitational hosted by Notre Dame last weekend. Her previous best time of 8.23 going into the weekend would not have qualified her for the national meet. She also learned on Monday night that her score of 3,941 points in the pentathlon, posted at the Red Simmons Invitational hosted by the University of Michigan back on Jan. 21, was good enough to qualify her for the national championships meet in that event. Hers was the final score to qualify in the pentathlon.
"We knew she would be on the bubble for the pentathlon," Lutzke said. "It certainly helped that she had already qualified in the hurdles, because there's a cap on the number of people that qualify in each event. However, if someone is right on the edge to get into an event but they've already made it into the meet in another event, it's a lot easier to add them for a second event than to add someone for their first event."
The schedule will set up well for Thomas this weekend, as she will compete in only one event on each day. The 60m hurdles will have its preliminaries and the finals on Friday, with the pentathlon competition taking place entirely on Saturday. That's in stark contrast to the conference meet two weeks ago, in which Thomas competed in the pentathlon and the preliminaries for the 60m hurdles simultaneously on the first day of competition.
"It will basically be two separate competitions on two days for Tamera," Lutzke said. "She gets to concentrate on the hurdles first, and then when that's over she can turn her focus to the pentathlon. I know she'll go out and compete as hard as she can both days, and we'll see where that puts her when the competition is over. She's been getting better and better every week, and her times have gotten faster and faster as the season has gone on. I'm excited to see what happens for her this weekend."
Thomas is seeking to be CMU's first indoor All-American since Suzy Bozin placed sixth in the high jump to earn All-America honors in 2002. She begins her quest in the preliminaries of the 60m hurdles at 5:20 p.m. on Friday. If she qualifies for the final, she would run at 8:20 p.m. later that night. The pentathlon begins with the 60m hurdles at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, and concludes with the 800m run later that day.
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