June 9, 2006
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The third day of action at the 2006 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships came to a close Friday night at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex in Sacramento, Calif., with two more women on the Arizona State University team earning All-America honors and one man advancing to the finals set for Saturday. In the team race, the Sun Devil women slipped to fourth place with 19 points while Texas and Nebraska share the lead with 26 points and Auburn sits third with 22. The men have three points and are tied for 33rd with Arizona leading the way with 28 points.
The women were led by Jessica Pressley and Jenna Kingma, both of which earned All-America honors. Pressley picked up four points for the team total as she placed fifth in the discus with a toss of 53.64m (176-00) to earn her second career All-America honor while Kingma placed 10th in the 5,000m run in 16:22.42 and earned All-America honors after placing as the eight American in the race.
Ryan Zimmerman was the lone male to advance in an event as he placed eighth overall in the qualifying round of the triple jump with a mark of 15.65m (51-04.25). He will compete in the finals of the event on Saturday in search of points for the team and his third All-America honor. Also searching for national acclaim and team points on Saturday will be Aaron Aguayo and Ryan Warrenburg, the first and fifth ranked qualifiers in the 3,000m steeplechase.
In the first day of the heptathlon, Jacquelyn Johnson put herself in contention for her third national title as she leads through four events. Johnson opened the day with her best heptathlon 100m hurdle time in 13.34 to score 1,074 points. She then tied for first in the high jump with a clearance of 1.78m (5-10.00) to score another 953 points to remain in the lead. She ran into a little trouble in the shot put as she fouled her first two throws and had to settle for a standing-toss of 10.46m (34-04.00) for 560 points, cutting her lead to 11 points. In the 200m dash, she ran 24.44 to place third in the event with 939 points, but remained in the overall lead by 10 points with a total of 3,526 points.
Also on Friday, Latosha Wallace (58.90) and Kelvin Love Jr. (21.18) finished 15th in the 400m hurdles and 17th in the 200m dash, respectively, but both failed in their bids to advance to the finals of their events.
Competition at the national championship meet continues through Saturday.