June 7, 2007

Four UTEP athletes advanced through the opening rounds of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday.

Junior Alex van der Merwe posted the fourth-best throw in the qualifying round of the javelin. He marked a season best of 227-0 (69.19). He will throw in the finals at 8:15 p.m. MST on Friday.

All-Americans Elias Koech and Dominic Kiprono Tanui breezed through opening round of the 800-meter run. Koech won his heat, running 1:48.71, while Tanui was third in the same heat with a time of 1:49.42. They run the semifinals of the event at 5:50 p.m. MST on Thursday.

Fatimoh Muhammed, who was fifth in the women's 800 last year, moved on running 2:06.15 in the opening round. She will run the semifinals on Thursday at 6:05 p.m. MST.

Oludamola Osayomi failed to advance to the finals of the 100-meter dash. She ran 11.34 in the first round and 11.46 in the semifinals.

Two-time All-American Patrick Mutai was knocked out of the 3,000-meter steeplechase preliminaries after being tripped up in the water jump with just under two and a half laps remaining. Mutai was in third place at the time of the accident.

The NCAA Championships run through Saturday.