Cal State L.A. Athletics

LOS ANGELES – Cal State L.A.’s women’s indoor track and field team got three Golden Eagles into the NCAA Division II Indoor National Championships, but two others missed out by the narrowest of margins.

 

Sierra Backus, Denina Speights and Moriah Jubrey are in, but Vivien Wadeck and Franziska Dobler were left out when the final list of competitors was announced Tuesday morning. Backus will compete in the long jump and triple jump, Speights is in the long jump and Jubrey has qualified in the 400 meters.

 

The NCAA Division II Championships will be held at the University of Houston on March 13-14.

 

Backus, who earned All-America honors last year in the triple jump after finishing fourth in the nation, has the No. 2 mark in the nation in that event heading into the championships. She recorded a mark of 39-10.50 on Feb. 20 in the Grand Rapids Championships at Grand Valley State.

 

This will be her second straight trip to the indoor nationals, where she was fourth in the triple jump last year with a mark of 39-1. Backus also qualified for the 2008 Outdoor Track and Field Nationals and finished 13^th in the nation. She will be seeking her third All-America award – her first was earned in 2007 when she was fifth in the nation in the triple jump with a mark of 39-10.75.

 

Backus will also compete in the long jump, where she has the 15^th best mark in the nation at 18-11.75. This is the first time she has qualified for nationals in the long jump.

 

Speights will be making her first trip to the indoor nationals after posting an automatic qualifying mark in the long jump. Her 19-1.25 effort was achieved at the Grand Rapids Championships at Grand Valley State. Speights qualified for the 2008 Outdoor Track and Field Nationals in the long jump with a mark of 18-11.75. She finished second in the California Collegiate Athletic Association with that effort.

 

Jubrey is a newcomer to the Cal State L.A. team and she’ll enter the championships with the seventh-fastest qualifying time. She ran a 56.94 in Boise on Feb. 14. Jubrey was an All-American last year at Riverside Community College and had a best mark of 56.3 in outdoor competition.

 

Two other Golden Eagles came painfully close to qualifying for the nationals. Wadeck, the CCAA cross country champion and an All-American in that sport after finishing eight in the nation last fall, had the 17^th-best qualifying time in the 5,000 and only 16 were selected. All 16 competitors selected achieved automatic qualifying marks, while Wadeck had the next-best provisional time of 17:09.84., which was just 1.84 seconds above the automatic standard of 17:08.00.

 

Dobler was No. 16 on the list in the 60-meters, but only 14 ended up being selected. Her best time of 7.71 seconds was narrowly above the final accepted qualifier’s time of 7.69. She is also a newcomer at Cal State L.A. and comes from Germany.

Cal State L.A. finished 11th in the country last year and Omonike Kotey won the individual national championship in the triple jump.

 

 

 

400 – 7. Moriah Jubrey 56.64

Triple Jump – 2. Sierra Backus (39-10.50)

Long Jump – 12. Denina Speights (19-1.25); 15. Sierra Backus (18-11.75)