Des Moines, Iowa - Four student-athletes will be representing Western Kentucky University at the NCAA Outdoor Championships June 6-9 at Drake Stadium. Monteka Flowers, Joseph Chebet, Ignacio Guerra and Marcus Pope each earned a spot in the championship by finishing in the top-12 of their respective events at the NCAA East Preliminaries in Jacksonville, Fla., two weeks ago.
The 2012 championship will be the second-career national final for "Nacho" Guerra. The WKU and Chilean-national record holder in the javelin, he placed seventh in this meet a year ago and was named USTFCCCA first-team all-America. Guerra had a mark of 229-11 to place fifth in the preliminary rounds and has a season-best mark of 242-11, which ranks 12th in the NCAA this season.
Running in heat two of the men's 5,000 meters at the preliminary-round site, Chebet punched his ticket to Des Moines with a sixth-place finish of 14:03.86, advancing on time. It will be the first career national championship for Chebet, who was the Top Point Scorer at last month's Sun Belt Outdoor Championship.
Running the 400-meter intermediate hurdles will be Pope, who will also be making his first trip to the NCAA Championship. At the east preliminaries, Pope clocked the seventh-fastest time of the first round at 50.91 seconds to finish second in heat two and advance to the quarterfinals. Pope then punched his ticket to Des Moines by winning his heat of the quarterfinals in a time of 50.95 seconds to finish 11th overall on the day.
Flowers will be the lone Lady Topper representative in Des Moines. The Indianapolis, Ind., native advanved to the finals site with a sixth-place finish in the discus at the east preliminaries. Her mark of 170-5 in Jacksonville set a new school record, breaking Victoria Gay's standard that had stood for over 30 years. Flowers was named Most Outstanding Field Performer at last month's Sun Belt Outdoor Championship.
Flowers will be first-up for the WKU contingent in Des Moines, as she throws the discus at 5:30pm (CT) Wednesday. Pope will run the semi-finals of the 400-meter intermediate hurdles at 8:15pm Wednesday. Guerra's javelin competition is scheduled for Thursday at 2:30pm. Chebet will contest the men's 5,000 meters Friday at 7:10pm.
