March 3, 2007

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -

Members of the Wake Forest track and field teams were in three different parts of the country on Saturday competing in last chance meets the weekend before the NCAA Indoor Championships.  The meets served as final opportunities for the Deacs to automatically qualify or improve provisionally-qualifying marks or times for the national championships.

Junior Michael Bingham ran a new personal-best time of 46.39 in the 400-meter dash at the Virginia Tech Last Chance Meet, shaving three tenths of a second off his previous best.  Since the race was run on a banked track, the time is an improvement on his previous NCAA provisionally-qualifying time and is not an automatically-qualifying time.  Entering the weekend, the mark would have been good for the ninth-fastest time in the nation.

The other Deac to improve a provisional mark was senior Michelle Sikes.  The Lakewood, Ohio, native ran a time of 4:43.63 at the Alex Wilson Invitational at Notre Dame to better her chances of qualifying for the NCAA Championships in that event.  The time took over a second off her previous-best result this season. 

Sikes is the only Deacon with an automatically qualifying time this season which she has in the 5,000-meter run (15:57.24).

Also at the Alex Wilson Invite, junior Chris Catton ran a new personal best in the 800-meter run.  His time of 1:52.58 was good for 13th place at the meet.  Junior Michelle Duffey ran a time of 57.12 in the 400-meter dash and sophomore Allison Kieffer ran a 5:01.02 in the mile, also new PRs for both.

While Sikes has punched her ticket to nationals, the other Deacons with provisionally qualifying marks will need to wait and see if their times will be enough to get the invitation.   The 2007 NCAA Indoor Championships will be held March 9-10 at the University of Arkansas.

- WakeForestSports.com -