Arkansas junior Chris Barnicle (Newton North class of '05) ran 13:56.43 for 5000m on Sunday, placing third in the SEC Championships. Barnicle's performance was a provisional qualifying time for the NCAA Div 1 finals and makes him the eighth fastest collegian in the country this season, meaning that he is virtually guaranteed a spot in the NCAA finals, to be held at Arkansas March 15th.
He'll be competing against an old Mass. rival, LaSalle's Sean Quigley (Archbishop Williams '03), who owns a 13:50 this season.
Barnicle completed a great weekend in which he ran PRs for both the 3K (8:03.29) and 5K distances. The 5k was his only attempt at the distance this season, and represents a 6s improvement on his outdoor PR.
Barnicle's 12 points in the two distance events helped Arkansas win their fourth straight SEC championship.
3 comments:
Chris ran great, but 13:56 will be very borderline getting into NCAA's. Last year 13:50 was the last spot (Quigley in 15th) to get in after all of the last chance meets. This year seems to be deeper, so it is going to be close. Hopefully he runs a last chance meet next weekend, hitting the auto, which he can do, as that would guarantee he makes it.
Not so sure about that. Last year, only 2 guys ran faster that Chris did in March(McDougal 13:37/Chelanga 13:44). Most qualifying marks were run in early February. Last year, 13:56.43 as of 3/3 would have put Chris on 19'th, this year it's 8'th. He's in decent shape barring a flurry of guys. Link: http://www.trackshark.com/rankings/2007/indoor_d1m.php
That was last year, this is this year. In one week it will be offical.
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