Dorniden Survives NCAA Prelim Scare; Cheever, Smith, Mead also Advance

Golden Gopher star Heather Dorniden weathered bad conditions and a few tense moments to qualify for the semi-finals of 800 meters at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Des Moines.

She, along with teammate Jamie Cheever (steeplechase) and Andrea Smith (pole vault) and the Gopher men's young distance star Hassan Mead (5000m) advanced during a stormy first day of competition at Drake Stadium.

Less fortunate were Gopher women Alica Rue (pole vault), Liz Podominick (discus), and Chirstin Kingley (long jump) and Gopher men Chris Rombough (5000m) and Ben Peterson (pole vault).

After Day 1 of the Decathlon, R.J. McGinnis is currently in 19th place with 3576 points.

Dorniden's Scare ... For the first time in her collegiate career, Dorniden needed to wait to see if she advanced to finals on time after finishing 4th in the first of four prelim heats which each advanced three racers automatically.

Dorniden thought she was safely third in the race, according to her description of events in THIS Gopher media release, but Tennessee's Phoebe Wright kicked her way into the mix.

“I had no idea she was there,” Dorniden said. “I thought it was just the three of us, then I looked over and oh no, there’s a fourth person there. I think I let up sooner than I should have."

“I’ve never felt what this waiting was all about and I don’t like it,” she said.

After anxiously watching the next three prelims, Dorniden advanced to today's semi-final as the #13 competitor of the 16 semi-finalists. Last year, Dorniden finished 3rd in at the NCAA Outdoor Championships running 2:01.05. She was the 2006 NCAA Indoor Champion.

Dorniden's cross country teammate Jamie Cheever, an indoor track and cross country all-American, ran 10:18.87 yesterday to finish fifth in her heat to earn an automatic qualifier to Friday night’s steeplechase final.

Pole vaulter Andrea Smith, who had competed in the NCAA Championships as a freshman and sophomore but failed to clear the opening height in either appearance, cleared a career-best 13-5 1/4 to advance to Friday’s vault final. Alicia Rue cleared 13-1 1/4 but did not advance in the event.

Liz Podominick threw the discus 143-9 but did not advance. Podominick competed in four NCAA meets in the event, joining Aubrey Schmitt as the only athlete in Gopher women’s track history to advance to the national meet in the same event all four years of a career.

Chirstin Kingley long jumped a non-advancing 19-5 1/4.

Mead Continues to Shine ... Hassan Mead finished an automatic qualifying 5th in his heat of the 5000m. The Big Ten 5000m champ clocked 14:31.07. Teammate Chris Rombough finished a non-qualifying 10th in 14:44.78 in the same heat.

Big Ten indoor champ Ben Peterson cleared 16-8 3/4 in the pole vault qualifying, but needed to clear 17-2 3/4 to advance to Friday’s final.

You can read the full Gopher men's media release HERE.

Other Minnesotans in Action ... State athletes running for other institutions had mixed results as well at the meet. Osseo alum Julian Morris of Northern Iowa jumped 6-10 3/4 in the high jump prelims but missed finals by a single place. A miss at 6-8 3/4 kept him from advancing with others who had cleared 6-10 3/4.

Kadeshia Fortune's University of Mississippi 4 x 100 relay squad finished a non-advancing 11th in prelims in 44.66. Mankato Loyola alum Sarah Price of Michigan State finished a non-qualifying 21st in the steeplechase in 10:46.47.

Live results for the meet, which runs through Saturday, can be found HERE.