Six UH Tracksters Qualify for NCAA Championships

Six members of the University of Houston women's track and field team have qualified to compete in the 2002 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships May 29-June 1 in Baton Rouge, La.

All-American Rhian Clarke will lead the Lady Cougars as she automatically qualified to compete in the NCAA Outdoor meet with the nation's sixth-best height in the pole vault. Clarke, who won her third straight Conference USA Outdoor pole vault championship May 11, recorded her season-best mark of 13 feet, 7 ¼ inches at the LSU Team Championships on April 20.

Joining Clarke will be Krystal Ward, juniors Aisha Morgan, Courtnie Ratliff and Lauren Smith, along with sophomore Jasmin Jackson.

Ward, a freshman from Rusk, Texas, qualified to compete in the women's heptathlon after she scored 5,286 points to finish in second place at the Texas Relays.

Morgan, a junior from Norma, N.J., will be running in the 100-meter dash after winning the event at the Conference USA Outdoor Championships on May 11 where she posted a career-best time of 11.48 seconds.

Another junior from Missouri City, Texas, Ratliff also won the 400 meters at the C-USA Outdoor Championships with her career-best time of 52.90 seconds.

Morgan and Ratliff join Smith, a junior from Houston, and Jackson, a sophomore from Chicago, Ill., on Houston's 4x100-meter relay team at the NCAA Championships where they qualified with a season-best time of 44.36 seconds at the Conference USA Outdoor Championships. Houston finished second at the C-USA meet behind TCU, which won the race in 44.25 seconds.

This marks the first time Houston has had six student-athletes qualify to compete in the NCAA Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championships since 1993.

Below is a meet schedule for the events in which the Lady Cougars will compete.

Thursday, May 30 Field Events 4:30 - Long Jump, Heptathlon 5:45 - Javelin, Heptathlon

Track Events 6:45 - 400 Meters, Women, Preliminaries 7:15 - 100 Meters, Women, Preliminaries 7:30 - 800 Meters, Heptathlon

Friday, May 31 Track Events 7:10 - 4 X 100 Relay, Women, Final

Saturday, June 1 Track Events 7:30 - 400 Meters, Women, Final 7:50 - 100 Meters, Women, Final