Spartans' Only Home Meet Ends Successfully

April 14, 2007

EAST LANSING, Mich. - In its lone home meet of the season, Michigan State posted five NCAA-regional qualifying marks at Saturday's Spartan Invitational, held at the Ralph Young Track. The meet featured collegiate track and field teams from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and included about 800 student-athletes from more than 20 schools.

"The meet doubled from last year, and we got a lot of good reviews from the coaches," director of track and field Walt Drenth said. "The people that helped run the meet, I thought did a great job. We had a few kinks to work out but the fact of the matter is when you go from having 300 athletes to almost 800 athletes, there's going to be some growing pains and I really thought we handled them very well."

Leading the Spartans on the track was junior Nicole Bush, who dominated the pack in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in her first outdoor race of the season. Bush nabbed a NCAA-regional qualifying time (10:41.50) and finished in first place, nine seconds below the qualifying mark. Coming in second was sophomore Sarah Price, who also met the criterion for the NCAA-regional meet with a time of 10:46.20, after being just seconds short of a qualifying time at last weekend's Colonial Relays.

"Nicole (Bush) and Sarah Price both qualified for regionals in the steeple, and Nicole is an All-America, and she ran like it today," Drenth said. "She just went out there and took charge. Sarah had just missed (NCAA Regional qualifying time) last week, and we knew just with a better understanding of the event, she would run better and certainly she did."

Melinda Buckmaster continued her impressive season with another regional-qualifying distance in the javelin. The senior threw for 46.45 meters (152-05), her longest throw this season as well as a personal-best distance. The Mayville, Mich., native previously threw 44.30 meters (145-4) at the Colonial Relays and at the Springtime Invitational. Buckmaster won the javelin with a distance of 45.45 meters (149-1), leading the second-place finisher by 1.65 meters (5-5).

"Every time Melinda throws, she wins," Drenth said. "She's producing in the clutch and she's throwing further nearly every time out."

Alissa McKaig posted her first top-place finish in the 5,000-meter run. The sophomore ran a NCAA-regional qualifying time of 16:31.38 in her first outdoor season.

"Alissa (McKaig) is making a lot of progress, coming back from injury after cross country," Drenth said. "She's starting to run into shape and by the time we get to the conference and regional meets, she will be in a position to not only score big points but also to make the NCAA Championships."

For the men, Mark Langlois improved on his regional-qualifying height of 5.05 meters (16-7), with his second first-place finish in the pole vault as he cleared the height of 5.10 meters (16-8 3/4).

"Mark has made the NCAAs, and he's a defending conference champion," Drenth stated. "We are going to expect him to win a lot of events like this."