GENEVA, Ohio -- Led by Trinity senior Molly McCullough, the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) saw three student-athletes qualify for Saturday’s finals and a chance to compete for a national championship and earn All-America honors following the opening day of the 2019 NCAA Div. III Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
McCullough placed third in the preliminaries of the women's 3,000-meter steeplechase, crossing the finish line in 10:50.80. She is competing in her third consecutive NCAA meet and has now qualified for the finals for the second straight year.
Trinity senior Abigail Bannon-Schneebeck posted a personal-best time of 1:02.20, which was good enough for a sixth-place finish in the prelims of the women’s 400-meter huddlers, qualifying her for Saturday’s finals.
The final SCAC athlete to qualify on Thursday came courtesy of Texas Lutheran junior Darren Jones. Jones posted the seventh-fastest time in the men’s 200-meters (21.59), positioning himself in lane nine for Saturday’s championship final.
Other outstanding performances from the opening day of the meet included a pair of freshmen in Trinity’s Sean Majors and Texas Lutheran’s Tia Hart.
Majors finished 10th in the men’s long jump with a mark of 7.13 meters, which is just the second time this season that he has eclipsed seven meters. He narrowly missed earning a spot in the finals and was just 0.05 meters away from eighth place and All-America recognition.
Hart concluded her outstanding rookie campaign with a 21st-place finish in the women’s javelin following a toss of 35.71m.
Texas Lutheran junior Paris Foster, sophomore Connor Thompson and freshman Tyler Dykes joined Jones to compete in the 4x100 meter relay. The quartet came up just short of making the finals, finishing 10th with a time of 41.45.
Finally, Colorado College’s Camille Weaver currently sits in 14th following the opening four events of the heptathlon on Thursday. The sophomore finished the day with 2,727 points on the strength of a fourth-place finish in the high jump (1.60m), a 12th-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles (15.19) and personal bests in both the shot put (9.73m) and 200-meter dash (27.61).
The NCAA Div. III Outdoor Track & Field National Championships continue today and will wrap up on Saturday by crowning two team national champions.
