May 18, 1998

  MONMOUTH,IL --- The Monmouth College track and field program will once again be represented by a large group of athletes at the national level as 13 men and women have qualified for this weekend’s NCAA Division III National Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The meet will be hosted by Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and will run from Thursday, May 21 to Saturday, May 23. This year’s championships mark the first year that a three-day format will be used for the NCAA meet, which had previously extended competition over four days. The top eight places in each event will earn NCAA All-American honors.

Two Monmouth relays reached automatic qualifying times at last Friday’s Augustana Qualifier Meet in Rock Island and guaranteed each group a race at the national meet. The women’s 4x100 relay team of seniors Heather Furrow (Kirkwood,IL/HS) and Stacy Brown (Barrington,IL/Lake Zurich), junior Christy Keller (Crystal Lake,IL/Central) and freshman Constance Jackson (Peoria,IL/Woodruff) broke a two-year-old school record and posted the third-fastest time in the country in the process. The quartet finished in 47.95 seconds, the first-ever sub-48 second relay in team history, and broke the old mark of :48.05 set by the 1996 All-American team. The Scots will attempt to earn their fourth consecutive All-American honor in the women’s 4x100 relay this weekend.

The men’s 4x400 relay will also make a repeat appearance at Nationals after clocking an automatic- qualifying time of 3:15.42. Seniors Toby Vallas (Knoxville,IL/HS) and David Kimber (Dolton,IL/St. Rita), sophomore Rich Johnson (Galesburg,IL/HS) and freshman Justin Bryant (Knoxville,IL/HS) will run the relay and will shoot for the program’s second 4x400 All-American award. Vallas, Kimber and Johnson ran on the 1997 relay which finished 13th a year ago.

In addition to the two relays, nine Monmouth athletes have qualified in 11 different events, including two returning individual All-Americans. Furrow is entered in the 400 meters and 400-meter intermediate hurdles and will look to duplicate her triple All-American effort of last year. The senior sprinter, who holds Monmouth women’s single-season (3) and career (7) records for individual All-American honors, finished 4th in the 400 and 7th in the 400 hurdles at the 1997 NCAA Meet and ran the second leg on the 8th-place 4x100 relay. Her highest individual ranking is in the 400 hurdles, where her season PR of 1:02.22 is the third-fastest in the nation. Senior Chris Sondgeroth (Pekin,IL/Erie) will also be looking to return to the award stand after placing third in the men’s shot put last year. His season-best throw of 54'0" is the sixth-longest in Division III competition heading into the National Meet and his put of 53'8" at last Friday’s meet was his second-best this spring.

Brown and Jackson are each entered in both the women’s 100- and 200-meter dashes and Bryant has qualified in both sprint races on the men’s side. Brown’s qualifying times of :12.04 and :24.86, the latter a Monmouth team record, rank her 5th and 4th, respectively, on the final performance lists while Jackson is 8th on the 200m list at :25.04. Bryant’s best 200m time of 21.75 seconds came at the MWC Outdoor Conference Championships and is 21st on the national rankings.

After finishing eighth indoors in the 55-meter high hurdles and just missing All-American status, senior Dennis Staggs (Farmington,IL/HS) has qualified for Nationals in the 110-meter hurdles outdoors and is coming off an impressive double hurdle victory at the MWC Conference Meet. His MWC-record time of 14.60 seconds ranks as the 16th-fastest time in the country.

Three other Fighting Scot athletes will join Sondgeroth in the field events. Seniors Jim Hardesty (Canton,IL/HS) and Tennille McClure (Taylor Ridge,IL/Rockridge) have each qualified automatically in the discus and are coming off of MWC individual championships in their specialty. Hardesty became only the second Fighting Scot track and field athlete to qualify four consecutive years in the same event and his season-best throw of 166'4" stands as the 5th-longest discus throw in the nation. McClure, who advanced to the national finals last year as a junior and placed 12th, currently ranks 10th on the performance list with her best throw of 145'0". Stephenie Schuler (El Paso,IL/HS) rounds out the Scots’ long list of qualifiers as the freshman has cleared the provisional height of 5'4½" in the women’s high jump. Schuler is tied for 20th on the national list and will await news of her provisional entry into the NCAA Meet based on field sizes.

Competition begins at Macalester on Thursday with most track event finals taking place on Saturday. The Fighting Scots, who recently claimed their third consecutive indoor/outdoor season sweep of MWC men’s and women’s conference meet titles, have qualified at least one athlete for the NCAA Outdoor National Championships every year since 1983. Monmouth’s best team finishes were in 1992 when the men placed 7th and the women finished in 20th place. Eric Ealy (1986, high jump) and Charles Burton (1992, 400m hurdles) are the only individual NCAA national track and field champions in school history while Furrow (1996, 3rd place, 400m) and Karen Seeman (1992, 3rd place, javelin) hold the highest individual women’s finishes.

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