FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Wichita State's
Lucy Ndungu advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Championships with her 11
th-place finish in the 10,000 meters at the NCAA West Preliminaries Thursday night at John McDonnell Field.
"I'm just really proud of her that she was able to achieve this," distance coach
Kirk Hunter said. "It was a huge goal for her. The effort, the time and the commitment that she's put in, not just on the track but away from us, is evident in the way she's racing. It's hard to express in words how good it makes you feel when [athletes] achieve their goal after all they've put into it like that."
The junior from St. Louis, Mo. entered the competition seeded 25
th and needed to finish in the top 12 to move on to the NCAA final on June 6 in Eugene, Ore.
"I told her before the stories of the number of girls that I've had come in here not ranked in the top 12 that made it and I said, 'why can't you?'" Hunter said.
Ndungu ran 34:23.39, her second-fastest career time to punch her ticket to Hayward Field.
"The thing she did best was at 5K to go, when the girls started moving, she covered the move really well," Hunter said. "And then she stuck her nose in there and was in the top 12 for quite a while, and she just kept battling. When somebody moved, she would just move with them and basically let that pack of 11 or 12 girls drag her away from everyone else."
Ndungu is the third Shocker woman ever to qualify to the NCAA Championships in the 10,000 meters and the first since Aliphine Tuliamuk in 2013. Tonya Nero advanced in 2010 and 2011, and Tuliamuk qualified in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
NCAA West Preliminaries Recap - Days 1 and 2
On the first day of competition, sophomore
Bryan Haney ran 51.62 in the 400-meter hurdles to take 25
th, just one spot away from advancing to the quarterfinals.
Jason Parrish finished 44
th with a time of 53.16 to cap his first collegiate season.
In the 110-meter hurdles,
Joseph Holthusen ran sub-14 seconds for the third time this season to finish out his Shocker career with a 31
st-place finish.
Josh Parrish ran 14.22 to take 39
th. Parrish went on to place 37
th in the long jump with a leap of 7.28m/23'10.75" to wrap up his first collegiate season.
The Parrish twins will compete at the USATF U20 Championships in June.
On day two,
Destiny Masters started things off with a 44
th-place performance in the javelin, throwing 43.63m/143'1".
Farrah Miller finished 37
th in the 800 meters with a time of 2:09.31 to finish out her junior campaign. Ndungu capped day two by punching her ticket to Eugene in the 10,000 meters.
