BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Northwestern State senior All-American Trecey Rew lived up to billing Friday in the women's shot put, while freshman teammate Jessica Talley exploded on the national women's javelin scene as the Lady Demon duo qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships with season-best marks at the NCAA East Preliminary Round.
Rew, who has battled injury to her right (throwing) wrist all year, approached her year-old school record 54-11 1/4 with a 54-8 mark Friday that was almost seven inches better than her previous 2011 best. She will defend her East Region discus championship Saturday.
Talley, who was not recruited by Northwestern out of LaSalle High School but walked onto the track and field team in November, finished fourth with her 158-6 opening throw in the javelin competition. It's nearly 40 feet better than her high school best.
NSU sophomore Carrie Lantrip, the bronze medalist at the Southland Conference Outdoors, finished 27th of 48 regional qualifiers with a 142-10 mark Friday in 55-degree weather.
Later Friday, Demon sophomores Wayne Douglas and Justin Walker did not advance. Douglas finished 26th in the triple jump at 49-0 1/4 while Walker false started and was knocked out of the 200 meter dash qualifying. Walker will run Saturday evening on the Demons' 4x100 relay team.
Lady Demons coach Mike Heimerman, who coaches the throwers for the NSU programs, was ecstatic with the performances of his athletes Friday.
"To be a freshman qualifying for nationals, that's awesome. Looking at yesterday's West Region results, she could quite possibly come back home from nationals as an All-American if she throws like this," said Heimerman. "Jess is one notch above novice at the jav. She had so little experience coming out of a Class A school where they started competing at the district meet. She just doesn't have a point of reference to understand what she's just accomplished.
"For not even being a recruit for us, I thought she would be our number 2 or 3 jav thrower this year, and I never thought she would place in conference, let alone win it. Now she's third on our all-time list behind two All-Americans, she's going to the national meet, so she's in some elite company. It's quite crazy."
Talley won the Southland Conference title two weeks ago in similar conditions, but not with a similar distance. Her previous best was 152-10 almost a month ago at the Demon Invitational, which was the 19th-best mark in the regional field. Earlier this week she served notice that something special might be ahead.
"Jess had a sensational training session Wednesday, so this isn't out of the blue. She was out there throwing what she threw today and then some, and she was turning heads," said Heimerman. "Today she put it out there on her first attempt, just sailed it. She had some other throws that were probably technically better, throws 5 and 6, but after sitting for a long time between her flight and the finals, and probably eating too much, she wasn't as loose. We'll manage that better at nationals, but the competition won't take so long, either, with only the top 24 in the nation there in Des Moines."
Rew took the opposite path. She had to post a clutch mark on her third and final throw in the opening round to reach the regional finals, and although that mark left her in a reasonably good position to advance to nationals, she found her groove in her final three tries and narrowly missed a monster mark to end the competition, said Heimerman.
"It was a rough one to start with. The first throw was really bad, a foul, after warmups didn't go that well. Her second throw wasn't good, and I gave her two things and she did them fairly decent, gave it a big horse ride, and she had a (52-11 1/2) throw that had her sitting eighth going to the finals," he said. "She came on late and got the big mark in the fifth round. That moved her up to third, but everybody started dropping bombs. We were sure she was headed to nationals after that, and she had a final attempt that was pretty close to spectacular if she hadn't dropped her elbow."
Heimerman didn't want to overlook Lantrip's effort.
"Carrie had her second-best throw of the season. It's her biggest meet ever, and she did well for her first trip here. She had two really good throws and then not a great third try, and she wound up 27th, way ahead of her ranking coming in. She took third in the conference meet, she got here and competed well, so it's been a super sophomore season for her," he said.
