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Commodore Trio Qualifies for SEC Mile Finals 2/26/2005 Fayetteville, Ark. – Three Commodore junior distance runners will compete in the Southeastern Conference mile finals Sunday after advancing through preliminaries Saturday at the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships, held at the University of Arkansas. Caitlin Shannon, Brittany Sizer and Alisa Cotter qualified for the mile finals, assuring the Commodores of team points from the event. With a maximum of 10 runners in the finals, the top eight finishers earn points. Shannon topped the Commodore qualifiers with a yearly best effort of 4:59.85. Sizer notched a personal best of 5:00.00 to advance, while Cotter earned the last berth with a 5:02.21 performance. A fourth Vanderbilt runner, sophomore Ashleigh Wetzel, just missed qualifying, finishing 11th overall in 5:02.58. Wetzel ran 8th in the SEC mile last year. Though the trio were Vanderbilt’s lone competitors to advance to the finals on Sunday, Commodore standout Josie Hahn will attempt to capture her first SEC indoor individual title by competing in the high jump. The Commodores also are expected to compete in the 4×400-meter relay final. Shannon ran her best indoor mile in nearly two years in the preliminaries, nearly three seconds faster than her previous best this winter. A former standout who ran in the 2003 SEC outdoor 1,500-meter finals, Shannon ran her fastest time since closing a 4:58.33 effort at the 2003 SEC Indoor Championships. For much of the last two years, she has been hampered by injury. Sizer was one of the Commodores’ top cross country runners before being injured in a fall at the Notre Dame Invitational in October. She continues to show signs of returning to excellent form, taking two seconds off her previous best in the mile. Cotter earned the last qualifying spot, but has the ability to run faster. Earlier this winter, Cotter lowered her personal best in the mile to 5:00.00 at the University of Kentucky Invitational. Shannon, Sizer and Cotter will likely have to break their personal bests Sunday to break into the top six overall finishers. Hahn, who narrowly missed breaking her own pentathlon school record during a second place finish Friday, will enter the high jump competition as a serious contender. Only one participant in the Southeastern Conference, Krystle Moss of Florida, has jumped higher than Hahn’s 5’10.75″ clearance Friday in the heptathlon. Hahn also enjoys jumping in the Randal Tyson Center, site of the SEC Indoor Championships, having set the Vanderbilt indoor school record of 6’0″ at the 2004 NCAA Championships held in the arena. A Commodore freshman distance runner, Julie Eckerly, will compete in the 5,000-meter run on Sunday. |
