June 11, 2008

2008 NCAA Outdoor National Championships Schedule

Meet Program - Wednesday Running Events

Meet Program - Wednesday Field Events

Des Moines, Iowa - In a season full of record-breaking performances and team success, the Western Carolina track & field team will look to wrap up their season on a high note this week at the NCAA Outdoor National Championships. The event is scheduled for June 11-14 at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa. Six Catamount student-athletes - the most ever sent by Western to the national championship meet - will be participating in five different events during the four-day competition.

Overall event winners will be declared national champions, with the top eight finishers - plus the top eight Americans in the individual events only - garnering All-American status.

Kicking off the competition for the Catamounts will be the men's 4x100-meter relay team, consisting of senior Zeb Johnson, junior Manteo Mitchell, and sophomores Christian Bethune and Dominique Young. They will be the first WCU student-athletes to participate in the meet, with qualifying for the 4x100-meter relay to begin at 4:45 pm CT on Wednesday.

The foursome enter the national championship seeded 12th in the NCAA with a time of 39.59, less than a second off the national leader, LSU (38.67). The group set a WCU school record twice while at the regional meet, breaking the record in the preliminary round before passing the baton quicker in the finals, to finish third in the highly competitive NCAA East Region. Last year, the men's 4x100 team finished ninth at the national championships, missing out on the finals by five-one hundredths of a second.

Also running on Wednesday will be WCU's two automatic qualifiers for the 400-meter dash, senior Raquel Ramseur, and Mitchell. Ramseur, who is ranked 20th in the nation for the women's 400-meters with a time of 53.08 seconds, will run her preliminary heats at 6:30 pm CT. Then at approximately 6:45 pm CT, Mitchell will take the track for the first round of his prelims, looking to improve upon his 26th-place finish at last year's nationals. This season, he ran third in the men's East region finals, and stands 21st overall in the nation with a time of 46.25.

For the national championships, the individual sprint events will be run in a tournament-style format. Each event has a set number of heats, of which the top two finishers in each heat plus the next six-best times will advance to the semifinals. In the semis, the top three in each semifinal heat plus the next two-best times will advance to the finals.

Rounding out the WCU competitors on day one of the meet will be sophomore Matt Evans, making his first-ever appearance in the National Championship in the high jump. Qualifying for the high jump will begin at 6:15 pm CT, with the finals to be held on Friday evening.

The Old Fort, N.C., native finished tied for 10th with seven others at the East Regional after clearing a height of 6-9. By finishing inside the top 12, he kept his chances of an at-large bid alive, receiving the nod today. Evans is ranked 21st in the nation with a best jump of 2.15 meters.

On Thursday, Johnson will begin his bid for a national championship in the 200-meter dash, with the preliminaries for the event scheduled to start at approximately 5:25 p.m. central time. Johnson, who finished sixth in the 200-meter dash, ranks 26th in the nation with a time of 20.78, which is also a school record mark in the event.

Fans can follow live results by going to www.TrackShark.com, or by logging onto the home page for the NCAA Outdoor National Championships here. Full results and highlights for WCU student-athletes will be posted on CatamountSports.com at the conclusion of each day's action.

WCU's NCAA National Championship Qualifiers:
Raquel Ramseur, Sr. - 400-meter Dash
Zeb Johnson, Sr. - 200-meter Dash, 4x100-meter Relay
Manteo Mitchell, Jr. - 400-meter Dash, 4x100-meter Relay
Christian Bethune, So. - 4x100-meter Relay
Matt Evans, So. - High Jump
Dominique Young, So. - 4x100-meter Relay