Gopher Squads Headed to Eugene, NCAAs

Four athletes each from the University of Minnesota men's and women's track and field teams are making the trek to Eugene, Oregon for the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships which open tomorrow.

Representing the Big Ten indoor and outdoor champion Gopher men are 1500-meter runner Ben Blankenship, high jumper Matt Fisher, 5000m runner Chris Rombough, and decathlete R.J. McGinnis.

WCCO Channel 4 featured McGinnis on its sportscast last night, which you can watch HERE.

Flying the maroon and gold in Oregon for the Gopher women are 1500m representatives Gabriele Anderson and Nikki Swenson, 10,000m runner Megan Duwell, and discus thrower Nikki Tzanakis.

Anderson, a sixth-year senior, makes her first appearance at the NCAA Outdoor Championships despite battling cancer in the past year. The Star-Tribune's Roman Augustoviz wrote a nice feature on Anderson, HERE, prior to the NCAA Preliminary round.

The feature story we wrote about Anderson last year is HERE.

The Gopher sports information folks have complete previews for both of the squads HERE (men) and HERE (women).

Heet sheets for the men's meet can be found HERE.

Heet sheets for the women's meet are HERE.