Five Crimson Tide athletes led the way in qualifying for The University of Alabama track and field team Saturday – the third and final day of the 2013 NCAA East Regional Preliminaries held at the Irwin Belk Track and Field Center at North Carolina A&T State University.
The Crimson Tide will send 15 athletes in 11 events for an overall 11 entries to Eugene, Ore., next month for the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
The 4×100-meter relay team of Alex Sanders, Diondre Batson, Akeem Haynes and Dushane Farrier earned qualification by winning its heat and recording the fastest time of the day with a 39.09. The next fastest time was LSU with a 39.19, a team that beat the Crimson Tide just 13 days ago at the SEC Outdoor Championships. In addition to the 4×100-meter relay team, the men’s 4×400-meter relay team qualified by finishing seventh overall. Joel Lynch, Dwight Davis, Ken Taylor and Quincy Smith earned their way to the 2013 finals by running a qualifying time of 3:07.7.
Diondre Batson qualified for the 200 meters, running a time of 20.57 and finishing fifth overall. Batson will run in the 100- and 200-meters, while also running a leg in the 4×100-meter relay team in Eugene, Ore.
Three freshmen qualified for the 2013 edition of the outdoor championships on the men’s side Saturday, including Elias Hakansson in the hammer throw, Imani Brown in the triple jump and Justin Fondren in the high jump. Hakansson registered a throw of 211-1 (64.35 m), before passing on his final three attempts, while Fondren cleared a mark of 7-0 1/4 (2.14 m) to qualify for his first NCAA Championship meet.
On the women’s side, Wilamena Hopkins punched her ticket to the championships in the shot put by finishing 10th in the East Regional, throwing 52 feet, 4 inches (15.95m). Hopkins, a senior from Archer, Fla., saved her best throw of the year for when it mattered most, as she qualifies for the NCAA Championships for the first time since her freshman year in 2010.
The 15 athletes who qualified at the preliminaries will travel to Eugene, Ore., for the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by the University of Oregon. The championships run June 5-8.
