C-USA Earns a Pair of All-America Honors in the 10,000-meters
June 8, 2007 IRVING, Texas - UTEP's Stephen Samoei and Rice's Marissa Daniels picked up Conference USA first All-America honors in the 10,000-meter races at the 2007 NCAA Men's and Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday. Samoei, a senior, earned his first NCAA All-America honors on the track by finishing sixth with a time of 28:55.83. Daniels, a junior, clocked a career-best and 11th-place finish of 33:57.37 to earn her first All-America honor. C-USA has 10 student-athletes competing in the finals of championship events on Friday and five on Saturday. Friday's finals will air live nationally on CSTV starting at 7 p.m. CST, while Saturday's championship events will be broadcast live on CBS with coverage beginning at 12 p.m. Full NCAA Championships results are available at: http://www.flashresults.com/2007_Meets/outdoor/NCAADivisionI/index.htm The following are team wrap-ups from Thursday. HOUSTON Floyd will run in the finals of the 100m at 8:25 p.m. on Friday and the 200m at 12:58 p.m. on Saturday. MEMPHIS Lee, who has earned two All-American honors at the NCAA Indoor Championships, is seeking her first national outdoor award in the final meet of her collegiate career. Saturday's semifinal round will feature the top 12 competitors from Thursday's opening round. The top-nine athletes from the semifinals will then advance to the final round, which will follow immediately.
RICE Junior distance ace Marissa Daniels raced to a lifetime best in the 10,000 meters late Thursday, taking 11th with a 33:57.37 and earning her first all-America honors. For the men, senior Pablo Solares used a withering kick over the final 400 meters to finish third in his heat and qualify for the finals of the 1500. The senior from Richardson clocked 3:44.42 to grab one of the four automatic qualifying spots for Saturday's final. Senior shot putter Luke Stadel closed out his Rice career with a 19th-place finish in the qualifying round, hitting 17.46 meters/57-3.5 on his first attempt. It took a throw of 18.26/59-11 to advance. SMU The Mustang senior from Montrveil, France, took first place in the shot put with a mark of 14.15 meters and tied for first in the high jump with a leap of 1.87 meters. She finished ninth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.57 seconds while placing 22nd in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.62 seconds. All four marks by Niare were season-best marks in those respective events. Andrea Kvetova advanced to Saturday's javelin finals after placing 10th in the preliminaries with a toss of 49.19 meters. The final three events of the heptathlon resume on Friday morning.
SOUTHERN MISS Liburd was unable to come close to her personal best and school record of Junior Hana Prudilova failed to advance to the finals of the javelin with a throw of 42.75m (140-3). Ashley Reyer was in 19th-place after the first day of competition in the heptathlon with 3,144 points. Reyer looks to improve her standing with her stronger events coming on Friday with the long jump, javelin and 800-meter run.
TULANE Wednesday, Asumnu advanced to the 100-meter dash finals with an 11.28 time. She will take the blocks for the NCAA 100-meter National Championship at 8:25 CST on Friday. The 200-meter NCAA National Championships will take place Saturday. TULSA Jeffers will go down as one of the most prolific field athletes in the history of the women's program. She owns the top two throws on the all-time list in the shot put, the discus and the hammer. She also owns the top two throws in both the indoor shot put and the weight throw. A five-time all-conference honoree, she was the indoor shot put champion in C-USA and has finished runner up in the outdoor shot put and discus. Tulsa still has a pair of athletes competing as Edwin Henshaw and Alex Becker prepare for the championship final in the men's and women's 5,000m, with Henshaw slated to run on Friday at 9:45 p.m. and Becker at 10:10 p.m.
UTEP Samoei earned his first NCAA All-America honors on the track by finishing sixth in the 10,000-meter run. He finished with a time of 28:55.83. A two-time All-American in cross country, Samoei has one semester of eligibility next fall. Japheth Ng'ojoy also took 16th in 29:35.50. UTEP also had two runners advance in the 800-meter run and Erma Gene Evans in the javelin. Elias Koech, an NCAA All-American in the event indoors, won his heat to qualify for Saturday's final (11:19 a.m. MST). He ran the semifinal's fourth-best time of 1:48.64. Dominic Kiprono Tanui, who ran in Koech's heat, led the race for the first 600 meters, but fell off and failed to qualify for the final. He was sixth in the section with a time of 1:49.89. In the women's race, two-time All-American Fatimoh Muhammed was third in her heat to automatically move on to the final, which is scheduled for 11:28 a.m. MST Saturday. She crossed in the third-fastest time of the semifinals in 2:03.57. Evans bettered the automatic qualifying distance on her second throw with a heave of 179-2 (54.61). She will throw in the final at 11 a.m. MST on Saturday. Tanui and Koech did not have enough fire power left to lift the 1,600-meter relay to the finals. They teamed up with John Alipio and Daniel Ward to run a season-best of 3:07.13. The time ranks as the fourth best in school history. The Miners will have Nelly Tchayem in the qualifying of the triple jump (4:15 p.m. MST) and Alex van der Merwe in the final of the javelin (8:15 p.m. MST) on Friday.
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