March 10, 2017
Day one of the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships took place on Friday in College Station, Texas and Vanderbilt’s Courtney Clayton competed in the 800-meter run semifinals. Clayton impressed with a time of 2:06.96, which was good for a 12th place overall finish in a field that included the top 16 runners in the NCAA for the event this season. Clayton qualified for the meet with a school-record time of 2:04.24 on Feb. 11 at the Music City Challenge, which ranked 15th nationally heading into the National Championship meet.
Clayton is one of three Commodores who earned qualification to the NCAA Championships. Pole vaulter Sarah Bell and triple jumper Simone Charley will compete tomorrow. Bell ranks 14th in the NCAA with a school-record mark of 13’11.25″ at the SEC Championships, which was hosted at the Vanderbilt University Multipurpose Facility. The pole vault competition will begin at 4:00 p.m. (CT). Charley and fellow triple jump contenders will begin competing at 3:30 p.m. (CT). She comes into the meet ranked fifth in the nation and is the defending NCAA runner-up in the event from last season’s indoor championships.
Three athletes is the most that Vanderbilt has sent to an NCAA Indoor National Championships meet since 1998, when the Commodores sent athletes to compete in the 400-meter dash, 800-meter run and the 4×400 relays.
Tomorrow’s portion of the meet will be streamed live on ESPN3 online or on the WatchESPN app beginning at 3:55 p.m., which can be accessed here: http://es.pn/2mk8zJ5.
