The collegiate indoor track and field season is over in less than two months.
If athletes have any hopes of competing in the NCAA Indoor Championships on March 13 and 14, they must qualify with haste.
There is no room for injury and little time for improvement.
With every meet, the opportunity to secure a spot in the national meet may pass a talented athlete by.
After this weekend, those chances will evaporate into thoughts of what could have been for some.
The fate of many will be decided in Seattle and Ames, Iowa, in the Last Chance meets on Saturday.
In addition to having the final opportunity to qualify, the athletes who have already done so can use the meets to improve their position at nationals.
This is important because the indoor tracks are smaller, so the finals in the track events divide the athletes into groups.
Essentially, a competitor could win his or her group but fail to place first because his or her qualifying time put him or her in a group with slower runners, whose pace may not be as fast as that of the top qualifiers.
On the men’s side, ASU is sending its 4x400 meter relay team to Iowa, fresh off a win and a provisional qualification at last week’s MPSF Championships, in hopes of improving their slot.
“I think we’ll improve this weekend, and obviously we need to,” coach Greg Kraft said. “That’s our goal … to get the mile relay qualified, ideally to the middle section of the national championships, which means [we] need to be in the top eight.”
The Sun Devils’ mark in the 4x400 relay is currently 0.26 seconds off the eighth place mark leaving them in the 13th spot.
“[The men’s 4x400 team’s] mental talents have lined up with our physical talents. … I feel that when we’re healthy we can run with anybody,” senior sprinter Donald Sanford said.
Last week, Kraft held senior Joel Phillip out of the open quarter in order to get the 4x400 team a position in the championship, but he has given last year’s national runner-up the green light for this weekend’s meet to attempt to qualify in his signature event.
Freshman Mason McHenry will also join the men, after a school-record performance in the 800 meters at the MPSF meet.
He currently sits in the 12th slot in the event, a position Kraft called “a little bit precarious.”
McHenry’s teammate in the event, sophomore Nectaly Barbosa, will also make the trip to try to improve his qualifying position.
The only member of the team making a return trip to Seattle will be senior Stephanie Garnett.
Kraft said the reason for the move was that the track in Seattle is more conducive to the long jump than Iowa State’s.
The ASU women are also shipping their 4x400 relay team to Iowa.
Last week, ASU was running right with Oregon as the Ducks ran the fifth-fastest time in the country for the win, but the Sun Devils dropped the baton in the third leg.
“We can’t have that happen; unfortunately it’s happened with that person before, and they just can’t do that in a championship event. It really put a big cloud on the weekend, but we’ve got to have a short memory,” Kraft said.
Reach the reporter at emschimm@asu.edu.
