NCAA Division II Indoor Championships Preview

It’s NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships weekend!

Centrally located between the Division I meet in Arkansas and the Division III meet in North Carolina is Birmingham, Alabama, the site of the 2015 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships Friday and Saturday.

We’ve got the Division I championships covered from all angles, and gave you earlier today a list of events to watch at DIII.

Now it’s Division II’s turn in the spotlight. Keep reading for some of the potential highlights of the meet.

For full information on the DII Championships, visit the USTFCCCA National Championships Central page below.

Men’s Shot Put and Weight Throw

Weight Throw: 5:35pm ET/4:35pm CT
Shot Put: Saturday, 6pm ET/5pm CT

The men’s team title between No. 1 Findlay, No. 2 Grand Valley State and No. 4 Ashland will be very heavily influenced by these two events. No. 1 Findlay has six of its 13 total meet entries in the throws, including DII leaders Justin Welch in the weight throw and Taylor Miller in the shot put.

Ashland will throw everything they have into the throws events, sending nine of its 14 total meet entries in these two events. Seven of them will compete in the weight throw. No. 3 Zac Ball and No. 4 Jared Conklin will challenge Welch and GVSU’s No. 2 Darien Thornton for the big points up top, while No. 8 Bryn Campbell, No. 11 Clayton Jury and No. 12 Jordan Crayon will battle for the equally crucial smaller points.

GVSU has three in the weight throw and two in the shot, but are better balanced with 15 total entries across all disciplines.

Lamar Hargrove vs. Emmanuel Matadi vs. Jeffrey Fraley

Men’s 60 Meters Final: Saturday, 4:50pm ET/3:50pm CT
Men’s 200 Meters Final: Saturday, 6:30pm ET/5:30pm CT

At last year’s NCAA DII Championships, Tiffin frosh Lamar Hargrove exploded onto the scene as the meet’s high-point scorer with national titles at both 60 and 200 meters. After a comparatively disappointing outdoor season, he’s back in the hunt for two more indoor national titles this year, seeded No. 1 at 200 meters in 20.93 and No. 2 at 60 in 6.70 – both faster than he ran at any point last year.

Looking to make a sweep of his own this year will be Minnesota State senior Emmanuel Matadi. The Maverick is ranked No. 1 at 60 meters in 6.66 and No. 2 at 200 meters in 21.05 (converted from flat track). Also look for Jeffrey Fraley of Missouri Southern to go for the sweep, seeded No. 3 at 200 meters in 21.14 (flat track conversion) and No. 5 at 6.72 over 60 meters.

Those two may be contending to sweep the short sprint titles, but there are several men who will try to derail those plans in one event or the other. The 60 meters features 16 men seeded within a tenth of a second of Hargrove at 7.70, including frosh Marquett Simmons, Jr., of Limestone.

Women’s 3000 and 5000 Meters

Women’s 5000: Friday, 7:45pm ET/6:45pm CT
Women’s 3000: Saturday, 6:40pm ET/5:40pm CT

If you get déjà vu watching the women’s 3000- and 5000-meter races at the CrossPlex this weekend, that’s understandable. Of the top 14 finishers from the 2014 NCAA Cross Country Championships this past December, 11 – including national champion Kendra Foley of Grand Valley State – are contesting at least one of these races this weekend, with six doing double duty.

Here’s those aforementioned top 14 from XC.

XC Place	Name	Team	3000 Seed	5000 Seed
1	Foley, Kendra	Grand Valley St.	No. 12	No. 6
2	Winchester, Allyson	Grand Valley St.	–	–
3	Janecke, Jessica	Grand Valley St.	–	No. 15
4	Frith, Emily	Bellarmine	No. 13	No. 9
5	Steen, Katelyn	Western Washington	No. 9	No. 5
6	McKenna, Fiona	Hawaii Pacific	–	–
7	Galat, Kristina	Hillsdale	No. 6	No. 1
8	Thurman, Jenna	Adams State	–	–
9	O’Brien, Maura	Adams State	No. 18	–
10	Seivert, Leah	Augustana (S.D.)	No. 19	No. 12
11	Kohnen, Julia	Southern Indiana	–	No. 4
12	Oren, Emily	Hillsdale	No. 2	–
13	Gustafson, Chloe	Colorado Mines	No. 15	–
14	Rivard, Samantha	Minnesota-Duluth	No. 7	No. 3

It’s not just those top XC returners in these races this weekend. While those women were running the trails in Louisville, Ewa Zaborowska of Harding ran one of the fastest 3000-meter races in history at 9:28. She’s the top seed in that event at 9:23.01. Also seeded faster than 9:30 are Emily Oren of Hillsdale and Jennifer Johnson of Simon Fraser.

Other names to watch: Amy Cymerman of GVSU, who is No. 2 at 5000 and No. 5 at 3000 after transferring from DIII St. Lawrence to pursue a graduate degree, and the 2013 cross country runner up Jessica Macy of Pittsburg State at 5000 meters.

Salcia Slack vs. the Field – literally

There are 83 teams represented at the NCAA Division II Championships this weekend. Only 16 of them are entered in more events – as a team – than Salcia Slack of New Mexico Highlands. The junior will be entered in not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE different events throughout the weekend – and she has a legitimate shot at winning or scoring highly in each and every one of them.

Every point matters, as New Mexico Highlands took over the No. 1 spot in the final National Team Computer Rankings based on her ability to shine in multiple events.

She’s the top seed in the pentathlon, the No. 2 seed in the 60-meter hurdles, the No. 3 seed in the triple jump, the No. 5 seed in the long jump and is a member of the eighth-ranked 4×400 relay.

She’s the defending outdoor long jump champ and indoor pentathlon champ, and was third both indoors and outdoors in the triple jump a year ago.

She’ll certainly have stiff competition in each of those events. In the long jump, her teammate Shanice McPherson is the Division II indoor record holder. Central Missouri’s Erika Kinsey has a decisive advantage in the triple jump, in a field loaded with proven national contenders like former national champion Kearah Danville of Angelo State, Malika Ouedraogo of West Texas A&M and Euphemia Edem of Tarleton State. In the hurdles, seven athletes are seeded within a tenth of a second of her in either direction.

Even in the pentathlon, Emilyn Dearman of Pittsburg State is seeded less than 80 points back of Slack.

Will Any of the Heavy Favorites Lose?

Here are some athletes who are the biggest favorites in their events:

Four-time individual 800-meter national champion Drew Windle of Ashland is more than half a second ahead of the rest of the field at 1:48.41, with only No. 2 Robin Butler of Western State coming within a second.
Jordan Edwards of Academy of Art is the favorite by nearly a full second at 400 meters in 46.64 – a mark only Findlay’s Sergi Torres and Elijah Owens of Ashland come within a second of.
There might not be a bigger favorite than Adams State’s Kevin Batt, who is the top seed at 3000 meters by nearly 16 full seconds over Marty Andrie of Colorado Mines.
Make that co-biggest favorite, because no man in the history of Division II 60-meter hurdling has gone faster than Myles Hunter of Minnesota State at 7.64. For reference, he needs a 7.53 to crack the all-time collegiate top-10 performers list, which would tie him with such standouts as Jason Richardson and Andrew Riley.
The biggest favorite on the track for the women is Ada Udaya of New Haven, and that applies in both the 60 and 200 meter races. With sprinting superstar Danielle Williams of Johnson C. Smith having exhausted her collegiate eligibility, Udaya is poised to become the new queen of DII women’s sprinting. At 7.33 and 23.42, she’s seeded nearly two-tenths of a second faster than the rest of the 60-meter field and more than a half of a second faster than the 200 field.
The biggest overall favorite in the women’s meet might be Erika Kinsey of Central Missouri in the high jump, as she is currently tied with two-time NCAA Division I champion Leontia Kallenou of Georgia atop the collegiate leaderboard at 1.90m.