Shay, Klemmer pace Irish in run for NCAA championship
By BRIAN BURKE and
KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
The Notre Dame men's and women's track and field teams entered the outdoor season with considerable talent and high expectations. They filled out those expectations with a conference-leading season and national qualifying performances.
The ability of the Irish was evident in the first week when the men's and women's squads split up to compete at the Arizona State Invitational and Stanford Invitational. Between the two meets, seven Notre Dame men and one woman qualified for the NCAA Championships. Among those were Ryan Shay, who qualified automatically in the 10,000 meters and Phil Mishka in the 800 meters for the men, and Alison Klemmer in the 10,000 for the women.
The following week, in a home scoring meet the men's 4 x 100-meter relay team of Chris Cochran Travis Davey, Tom Gilbert and Marshaun West broke the school record with a time of 40.22 seconds. The women also set several school records, including Jamie Volkmer who broke school records in both the pole vault and triple jump.
After a week off due to harsh weather, the Fighting Irish traveled to Walnut, Calif. for the prestigious Mt. SAC relays.
The top performance for Notre Dame once again had to be Shay, who broke an 11-year school record in the 10,000 and qualified for the Olympic Trials in the process. Shay also is ranked as the second best runner nationally in the 10,000, but his Olympic Trials qualifying mark has changed his training plans slightly.
"Now I have to kind of train through nationals and focus on peaking at the Olympic Trials," Shay said. "There are a handful of collegiate runners who will be running in the trials, so they'll be going through the same thing."
The men's squad sto rmed to its first-ever Big East Outdoors Championships after being the runners-up a year ago and at this season's indoor title meet. The women, meanwhile, took third place at the Big East Outdoors Championships for the second year in a row.
"That was probably the single achievement that I've been most proud of in my four years," middle-distance runner Mishka said. "We talk about that [as a goal] every day at practice, after warmups and at meets. We're always focused on winning the Big East."
Notre Dame coaches Joe Piane, Tim Connelly, John Millar and Scott Winsor earned Big East Outdoor Staff of the Year for their team's performances.
"That was a lot of fun," Piane said. "The seniors really were committed. They dedicated everything to that. We had been knocking on the door of the Big East for years. By winning by 53 points, I think we kicked down the door."
Among the top performers were the men's 4 x 100-meter relay team which finished first and set a Big East meet record. Senior high jumper Jennifer Engelhardt also set a Big East meet record in claiming her third Big East title, with a mark of 5 feet 11 inches. The jump earned her a provisional qualification for the NCAA Championships.
Seniors Mishka and Tim Kober rank among the top 10 800 runners in the nation, heading into the final weekend of NCAA qualifications. Long jumper West, distance runner Alison Klemmer, 400-meter runner Liz Grow and men's steeplechase runner Luke Watson, long jumper Tameisha King, high jumper Engelhardt, Shay and Marc Striowski in the 10,000, Antonio Arce in the 5,000-meter run, and Mishka and Kober in the 800 have all met provisional or automatic qualifying standards for the national meet.
Indoors, the Irish qualified four athletes for nationals in the distance medley relay. Cochran, Kober, Mishka and Watson placed sixth in the championships for All-American status. During the indoor season, they also set a school record of 9:38.15.
At the Big East Indoors Championships, the men took second to Georgetown while the women placed sixth.
All Sports Stories for Friday, May 19, 2000
