Michigan
NCAA East Preliminaries
Three Field Event Wolverines Qualify to Nationals on Final Day of East Prelims
5/26/2018 10:27:00 PM | Men's Track & Field
Site: Tampa, Fla. (USF Track & Field Stadium)
Event: NCAA East Preliminary Rounds (Day 3 of 3)
U-M Team Result: No Team Scoring
Next U-M Event: Wed-Sat., June 6-9 -- NCAA Outdoor Championships (Eugene, Ore.)
Confirmed NCAA Championships Qualifiers: Ben Flanagan (10,000m), Taylor McLaughlin (400m hurdles), Brandon Piwinski (High Jump), Andrew Liskowitz and Grant Cartwright (Shot Put).
TAMPA, Fla. -- Field events took center stage for the University of Michigan men's track and field team on the final day of the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds on Saturday (May 26) as three Wolverines punched their tickets to the national meet.
Andrew Liskowitz and Grant Cartwright qualified to the NCAA Outdoor Championships -- to be held in Eugene, Oregon, on June 6-9 -- in the shot put for the second year in a row, while high jumper Brandon Piwinski made the most of his first NCAA East Prelims appearance to become Michigan's first nationals-bound high jumper since 1994.
With the Prelims now concluded, the trio will join 400-meter hurdler Taylor McLaughlin and 10,000-meter runner Ben Flanagan in competition at Historic Hayward Field in a week-and-a-half's time.
Liskowitz, and especially Cartwright, saved their best throws for last in the truncated three-attempt qualifying competition. Cartwright heaved a new career best on his final try to keep his Michigan career alive.
THAT'S how the #MeatFactory does it!
— Michigan Track & Field / Cross Country (@UMichTrack) May 26, 2018
On final attempts, Grant Cartwright goes a career-best 19.53m (64-1) and Andrew Liskowitz follows with a huge 19.92m (65-4.25)!
They're currently 2nd (Liskowitz) & 7th (Cartwright) with just a few throwers left#ThrowBlue #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/fQwFksdO3X
Entering the final round with a best mark of 18.46m (60 feet, 6.75 inches), Cartwright threw caution to the wind on his third throw and blasted a new personal-record 19.53m (64-1) to move him up to sixth at the time and ultimately seventh overall. The PR came at just the right moment, as his first- and second-round throws would have only been good for 14th and outside the qualifying roster.
Liskowitz was already relatively safe after launching a first-round 19.27m (63-2.75) that otherwise would have placed him 10th, but he put a series of exclamation points on his series with a second-round 19.52m (64-5) and a final-attempt 19.92m (65-4.25) to move him to second at the time and ultimately third overall.
The two men combined for a distance of 39.45m, the best total for a pair of Michigan shot putters in school history, indoors or outdoors. No other school in the country has two shot putters who have both surpassed 19.50m (or 64 feet, converted).
Kentucky was the only other school in the East to advance multiple shot putters to Eugene.
Piwinski, competing in the midst of his first outdoor season since 2016 after injury kept him away for all of 2017, positioned himself perfectly to become Michigan's first NCAA Outdoor Championships high jump qualifier since Jon Royce in 1994 with a pair of first-attempt makes.
It may be raining sideways here at the #ncaaTFEast Prelims, but the only direction Brandon Piwinski @bpiwinski is going is up
— Michigan Track & Field / Cross Country (@UMichTrack) May 26, 2018
He's over the bar in the high jump at 2.11m (6-11) on his 1st attempt, putting him in the driver's seat for the moment as the field battles the elements pic.twitter.com/D2xaiAjo0F
In a competition that was only designed to continue until a clear-cut set of 12 qualifiers was determined, Piwinski was in the driver's seat for a berth to Eugene throughout the entire competition.
He needed just one attempt at his opening bar of 2.06m (6-9) and took just one try at 2.11m (6-11) to get up and over.
He was one of just three men in the field to make it over both heights on first attempts as the elements bore down on the competition, with sideways rain from nearby Tropical Storm Alberto at one point halting competition for about 10 minutes.
The next bar, 2.16m (7-1) ultimately proved a bar too high for a majority of the field as only four men were able to make muster at that height. Piwinski was not one of them, but his clutch jumping at the previous two heights came in handy as the tiebreakers began.
From among the 11 men who cleared 2.11m but could not get above 2.16m, Piwinski and Notre Dame's Matthew Birzer had the fewest misses at the previous heights -- none -- and were awarded fifth-place in a tie.
Piwinski will make his appearance at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships 35 years after his father Paul took seventh in the high jump for Michigan State at the 1983 NCAA Outdoor Championships. The elder Piwinski was a two-time All-American for the Spartans and the school's indoor and outdoor school record-holder.
The Wolverines nearly had a perfect day of qualifying in the field events, as Kevin Stephens Jr. nearly made nationals in the triple jump with a career-best 15.67m (51-5) (+0.4m/s) that powered him to a 14th-place finish.
After opening up at 15.63m (51-3.5) on his first attempt, he added another four centimeters on his second try. Sitting in 11th after round two, he leapt nearly 52 feet, but was unable to stay on the board as he recorded a foot foul.
Needing no more than one man to bypass him in the standings in either of the two flights simultaneously being conducted over the remainder of the final round, he nearly made it through until three men passed him in the round's late stages.
In the lone track competition of the day for the Wolverines, distance runners Micah Beller and Aaron Baumgarten closed out their Michigan careers with top-10 finishes in their respective 5,000-meter semifinals.
In the first of two races, Beller finished ninth in 14:11.93, coming back from 12th with three laps to go. With each successive lap he picked off another runner, concluding with the eighth-fastest final 400 meters of any competitor in his race. He would finish 14th overall, about nine seconds off the final time qualifier.
Baumgarten, looking to follow up on his first Big Ten title from two weekends ago, took 10th in a more tactical 14:31.02. With a mile to go, Baumgarten found himself sixth-from-last in the pack, but moved up seven spots by the next time around to take command of a chase group in pursuit of a 10-man breakaway.
He kept up the pace for the next three laps and reeled in a few stragglers from the front, but ultimately could not come closer than 10th. Overall, he took 25th in the composite standings of the two heats.
FULL MICHIGAN RESULTS BY EVENT
Q = Automatic qualifier to NCAA East Prelims quarterfinals
q = Non-automatic qualifier to NCAA East Prelims quarterfinals
w = wind-aided (greater than 2.0 meter-per-second [m/s] wind)
5,000 Meters (Semifinals)
14. Micah Beller / 14:11.93
25. Aaron Baumgarten / 14:31.02
10,000 Meters (Semifinals) [Thursday]
3. Ben Flanagan / 29:17.24 (Advanced to NCAA Championships)
400-Meter Hurdles (Quarterfinal) [Friday]
2. Taylor McLaughlin / 49.89 (Advanced to NCAA Championships)
4. Taylor McLaughlin / 50.56Q (Thursday, first round)
36. Roland Amarteifio / 52.70 (Thursday, first round)
3,000-Meter Steeplechase (Quarterfinals) [Friday]
14. Connor Mora / 8:49.90
High Jump (First Round)
5. Brandon Piwinski / 2.11m (6-11) (Advanced to NCAA Championships)
Triple Jump (First Round)
14. Kevin Stephens Jr. / 15.67m (51-5) (+0.4m/s)
Shot Put (First Round)
3. Andrew Liskowitz / 19.92m (65-4.25) (Advanced to NCAA Championships)
7. Grant Cartwright / 19.53m (64-1) (Advanced to NCAA Championships)
Hammer Throw (First Round) [Thursday]
15. Joe Ellis / 65.47m (214-9)
17. Grant Cartwright / 65.12m (213-8)
37. Manning Plater / 59.01m (193-7)
Players Mentioned
