Jacksonville, Fla. - Day one of the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds at North Florida's Hodges Stadium is in the books for Western Kentucky University track and field.
Ignacio "Nacho" Guerra has punched his ticket to the finals site in Des Moines, Iowa, for the second-straight year after a fifth-place finish in the javelin with a throw of 229-11. The NCAA Championship is scheduled for June 6-9 at Drake University.
Marcus Pope and David Mokone advanced to Friday's quarterfinal rounds in their respective events after today's first round competition. In the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, Pope clocked the seventh-fastest time of the day at 50.91 seconds to finish second in heat two and advance to the quarterfinals. In the first round of the 800-meter run, Mokone finished second in heat four with a clocking of 1:51.20 to advance to the quarterfinals.
Also competing in the 400-meter hurdles, Karlis Daube narrowly missed advancement to the quarterfinals after clocking a first-round time of 53.18 to finish 29th overall and fifth in heat one. Gelela Cooley and Deus Rwaheru did not finish in the 400 meters and 10,000 meters, respectively.
In the women's long jump, Jade Nimmo missed qualifying for the finals by just one centimeter, placing 17th overall with a mark of 20-0.25.
Scheduled to compete on Friday will be Monteka Flowers in the discus, Cyrus Johnson in the triple jump, Pope in the 110-meter high hurdle first round and 400-meter intermediate hurdle quarterfinals, Mokone in the 800 meter quarterfinals, and Kyle Chettleburgh and Michelle Finn in the steeplechase.
