Four Bowling Green State University athletes are currently competing at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville which is hosting the NCAA East Region Preliminary
meet for track and field.
Makenzie Wheat, sophomore; Brittany Sinclair, senior; Kori Reiser and Brooke Pleger are competing in events. Wheat participated in the third of four heats for shot put Thursday, May 28.
As a freshman, Wheat qualified for regionals by securing the last of 48 places, but did not register a legal throw within the
competition itself.
This season, she placed 19th in the shot put competition, placing her 29 places ahead of last year.
Her first throw Thursday went 50-feet-2-inches and which led to her tying for 18th place with Alabama senior Candicea Bernard.
Wheat lost the tiebreak. She finished fifth among freshmen and
sophomores at the meet.
Sinclair ran in the last of six heats of the 400 hurdles with the top three in each Thursday and advanced to Friday’s quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m.
With a finishing time of 59.97 seconds, Sinclair placed fifth in her heat and 35th overall. Reiser participated in
the discus competition on Friday, May 29.
This season, Reiser threw the discus 152-feet- 4-inches which landed
her in 37th place at the
meet.
This is the second consecutive year in which she has placed in the top 40 at the regional event.
According to Bowling Green State University Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications, Jason Knavel, Reiser is also the only Falcon to compete at regionals in the discus twice in their career.
Saturday brought the hammer throw event and with it the success of redshirt senior Brooke Pleger, who will now be returning to the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field National Championships for the third time in her career.
In her performance Saturday, Pleger set new meet and stadium records for the hammer throw when she threw for 222-feet-2-inches, beating the meet record by four feet and the stadium
record by eight inches.
Pleger placed seventh in the 2013 national championships and third in the 2014 national championships, making her a likely favorite to win the title this year.
The University has never housed a national champion for track and
field and has been home
to no national champion
since 1999.
Pleger will compete against the other participants who placed in the top 12 in the East Preliminaries and the top 12 participants in the West
Preliminaries on June 11 at 4:30 EST.
Those placing in the top 12 of each event will advance to the NCAA Division I Outdoor
Track and Field National Championships which are scheduled to take place
in Eugene, Oregon June 10-13.
