Michigan
NCAA Indoor Championships
Meier, DMR Enter NCAA Indoor Championships as Favorites
3/5/2019 4:24:00 PM | Women's Track & Field
» Hannah Meier and the Michigan distance medley relay enter the NCAA Indoor Championships on Friday and Saturday (March 8-9) in Birmingham, Alabama, as favorites to claim national titles.
» Meier is ranked No. 1 in the mile, and will run the preliminaries in that event on Friday at 5:35 p.m. CST with the goal of advancing to Saturday's final for a shot at the NCAA crown.
» The DMR team of Alice Hill, Chloe Foster, Aurora Rynda and Meier is also seeded No. 1 nationally as Michigan seeks a nation-leading fifth national title in the event.
THIS WEEK
Fri-Sat., March 9-10 -- NCAA Indoor Championships (Birmingham, Ala.), 5:35 p.m. CST / 4:10 p.m. CST
Meet Homepage | Live Results | ESPN3 Live Streams: Friday | Saturday
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Bolstered by a pair of top-seeded entries, the No. 21 University of Michigan women's track and field team looks to close its winter season out in style at the NCAA Indoor Championships on Friday and Saturday (March 8-9) in Birmingham, Alabama.
On the strength of her school record and Big Ten title in the mile, Hannah Meier will arrive at the Birmingham CrossPlex -- where Michigan claimed its most recent NCAA indoor event title by way of 60-meter hurdler Cindy Ofili -- as the No. 1 seed in that event and as the anchor leg of the nation's fastest distance medley relay team.
The Michigan DMR -- also featuring Alice Hill, Chloe Foster and Aurora Rynda -- already made history this season as the fastest in Big Ten history and will look to make more as they go for an all-time best fifth national title in the event. The Wolverines are tied with Tennessee with four crowns.
Meier gets the weekend going for Michigan with the preliminaries of the mile at 5:35 p.m. CST on Friday, followed by the distance medley relay final at 8:47 p.m. CST.
Should Meier advance to the final of the mile, she will go for the national title at 4:10 p.m. CST.
Both entries continue long lines of tradition of NCAA qualifying for the Wolverine women. The DMR team returns to the national meet for the 16th time in the past 17 seasons, while Michigan will field a miler for the 11th time in the past 16 seasons.
This will be the first NCAA Indoor Championships appearance for all involved, and the first NCAA Championships meet of any kind for everyone except Meier. She was a competing member of the fourth-place NCAA Cross Country Championships team in November.
Meier and the distance medley relay are looking to claim national titles, which would benefit the Wolverines greatly in the overall team standings at the championships.
Top-eight finishers earn first team All-America recognition from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). More importantly, top-eight finishers also score points for their teams in the overall standings. Event champions earn 10 points, the runner-up earns eight, third earns six, fourth earns five, fifth earns four, sixth earns three, seventh earns two and eighth earns one. The team with the most points at the end of the championships wins the team title.
Finishers ninth through 16th are awarded second team All-America honors. Those competitors who fail to record a mark, are disqualified or otherwise do not appear in their events' final standings are decreed "Honorable Mention."
ESPN3 will broadcast the NCAA Indoor Championships live, with the online stream beginning at 5:30 p.m. CST on Friday and on Saturday at 5 p.m. CST. Both the mile and the relay will be part of the webcast.
Fans can follow live results by way of NCAA.com, and on the official social media channels of Michigan track and field.
When to Watch the Wolverines
| Friday (March 8) | Event | Meet | Time (CST) |
| Hannah Meier | Mile | Semifinal | 6:35 PM |
| Hill, Foster, Rynda, Meier | Distance Medley Relay | Final | 9:47 PM |
| Saturday (March 9) | Event | Meet | Time (CST) |
| Hannah Meier | Mile | Final* | 5:10 PM |
* If she makes the 10-woman final
Meier Favored in the Mile
• Meier enters the championships on a nearly month-long streak of success. She ran a then-career-best 4:34.66 mile at Vanderbilt at the beginning of February, followed that up a week later with the anchor leg of the fastest DMR in the country and in Big Ten history, and then won the Big Ten mile title in a new school record 4:32.46. With the only three faster milers opting for other events this weekend, Meier's Big Ten-winning time stands as the top seed.
• With two sub-4:35 performances to her name this season, she arrives in Birmingham with 2019 credentials unmatched by the rest of the field. Susan Ejore of Oregon comes closest to equaling that feat, with times of 4:34.83 and 4:35.57. Also among the field is 2017 NCAA winner Karisa Nelson of Samford, who also has a pair of sub-4:38.50 performances this winter.
• Meier's school-record time to win the Big Ten title also moved her into elite company in the overall history of the conference. Only three women -- Michigan State's Leah O'Connor, Penn State's Danae Rivers and Wisconsin's Suzy Favor Hamilton -- have ever run faster in Big Ten history.
• Though Michigan has had an NCAA Indoor mile competitor in 11 of the past 16 seasons, no Wolverine -- yet -- has come away with the national title. Nicole Edwards -- now Nicole Sifuentes, a volunteer assistant coach for the Wolverines -- came closest when she was the national runner-up in 2008.
• This is the second year in a row a Meier sister will have represented the Wolverines in the NCAA mile. Twin sister Haley won the 2018 Big Ten title -- defended in 2019 by Hannah -- and went on to finish 12th at NCAAs.
Distance Medley Relay Looks to Capture Fifth National Title
• No distance medley relay team has ever run faster than Michigan did at the Alex Wilson Invitational on Feb. 16 when it clocked a nation-leading 10:54.47. The squad of Hill, Foster, Rynda and Meier clocked the best time in the NCAA by nearly a second and a half, with only No. 3 seed Boise State also within two seconds of the Wolverines.
• Hill led off the 1,200-meter leg with a split of 3:21.2, followed by Foster's 400-meter split of 52.8. Rynda clocked 2:04.1 for 800 meters, and Meier closed it out with a 4:36.4 split for 1,600 meters. It was the first DMR performance for Hill, Foster and Rynda.
• Arguably no program has been more closely associated with the distance medley relay than Michigan, which shares the all-time lead in DMR national titles with Tennessee at four apiece. Michigan claimed the crown in this event in 1994, 1998, 2005 and 2013, with seven additional top-five finishes scattered throughout.
• While the Wolverines were upset for the Big Ten title by Michigan State, each and every one of the relay members bounced back for career-best or near-career-best performances on day two of the conference meet. Meier ran the school record in the mile with Hill just off her personal record behind her in sixth, while Rynda came within a quarter of a second of her 600-meter PR to win the Big Ten title at that distance with Foster clocking a new PR of her own for fourth.
• Meier is also entered in the mile, making her one of potentially as many as seven women who could pull double-duty between both the mile and the DMR. Should Meier not be in a position to race the relay, Big Ten fifth-place finisher Meg Darmofal would step into the lineup.
Players Mentioned
