GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Northwestern State's Trecey Rew advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships Thursday with a qualifying mark in the women's shot put, and Demons sprinter Mike Green moved forward to the 400 meter dash regional final while freshman sensation Justin Walker didn't advance in the 100 qualifying at the NCAA Eastern region preliminary round.
Rew threw 53-6 1/2, sixth among the 12 competitors qualifying for the NCAA Championships in two weeks at Eugene, Ore., at storied Hayward Field. She will try to qualify Saturday in the discus.
Green zoomed into the 400 meter regional final with a 46.67 time, 21st among the 24 runners moving on to Friday's regional final. The top 12 finishers Friday qualify for the national meet.
Walker ran a 10.46, fifth in his heat and the 25th best time overall in Thursday's qualifying. The top 22 times advanced to Friday night's regional finals along with two other top three finishers in qualifying heats. Walker still can reach the national meet in the 200 prelims Friday.
In the shot put, Rew had to avert disaster after committing foot fouls on the first two of three preliminary round attempts to whittle the 48-woman field down to 16 finalists. She played it safe with her third try and posted the 53-6 1/2 mark, more than a foot behind her season's best 54-11 1/4 that ranks sixth nationally. She fouled twice in the finals sandwiched around a 52-1 1/4 throw that would still have advanced her to Eugene, as it ranked 10th if needed.
Green will be joined in the 400 regional finals by LSU's Armanti Hayes, fourth-fastest Thursday in 45.72, and Louisiana Tech's Albert Fullwood, 12th best Thursday in 46.10. Green's personal best is 46.13 at the 2009 Southland Conference Outdoors.
Walker had run the fastest two 100 times of his life in his last three races. His season's best matched NSU's school record at 10.13 on May 1, and a week later, he ran 10.15 as the runner-up at the Southland Conference Championships, after he clocked 10.57 in preliminary qualifying a day earlier.
But in eight meets, those were his only two 100 meter times under 10.43 this spring, and 10.43 (actually, 10.426) was the 22nd and final qualifying time Thursday. The top 12 runners in Friday's 100 meter regional finals will advance to the national meet.
Thursday's second-fastest qualifier was Luther Ambrose of Louisiana-Monroe (10.19) while LSU's Jerel Hill also advanced with the fifth-best time (10.26). Walker had the fourth-fastest time in the region this season coming into the meet.
Walker will be running in the 200 meter prelims Friday evening at 7:30 CST. He is fifth seeded with a school-record 20.49 time, a half-second faster than his previous best in an event he's run only four times this season.
Also competing Friday for NSU will be Lady Demon freshman Constance Seibles, Demon freshman Joshua Commiato and sophomore P.J. Bennett.
Seibles runs in the 200, with her school-record 23.67 listed 27th in the region.
Bennett runs a men's 110 meter hurdles first-round race Friday afternoon. He is 41st with his 14.24 best mark posted while finishing third at the SLC Outdoors.
Commiato competes late Friday afternoon in the high jump qualifying. He has a best leap of 6-10 1/4 to rank 45th regionally. He was second at the SLC Outdoors at 6-9 3/4.
