Five NCAA Qualifiers, Three School Records on Final Day at NCAA East Prelims

Saturday, May 28

Bloomington, Ind.

1:00 PM

Michigan

NCAA East Preliminaries

Aasia Laurencin (Michigan Photography)

Five NCAA Qualifiers, Three School Records on Final Day at NCAA East Prelims

5/28/2022 10:32:00 PM | Women's Track & Field

By: Kyle Terwillegar

Site: Bloomington, Ind. (Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex)
Event: NCAA East Preliminary Rounds (Day 2 of 2)
U-M Result: No team scoring
Next U-M Event: Thu-Sat., June 9-11 -- at NCAA Outdoor Championships (Eugene, Ore.), TBA

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- With five national championships qualifiers and three school records, the University of Michigan women's track and field team made the most of its final day at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds on Saturday (May 28) at the Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex.

Corinne Jemison (discus) and Ziyah Holman (400 meters) both clinched berths to the NCAA Championships with school-record performances; Aurora Rynda (800 meters) and Aasia Laurencin (100-meter hurdles) clinched their spots with dramatic come-from-behind efforts; and Kayla Windemuller (3,000-meter steeplechase) front-ran her way to her first career NCAA meet.

It marks the second consecutive year at the NCAA Outdoor Championships for both Holman and Rynda, as well as for Laurencin, who qualified last year at Texas prior to transferring to Michigan.

Jemison kicked off the day by rewriting the Michigan record books in only three rounds, launching a school-record 57.40m (188 feet, 4 inches) on her third-and-final attempt with a mark that assured her a spot at nationals. She advanced despite being part of the middle-seeded second flight of three, and needing to wait for the conclusion of the third flight to officially celebrate her advancement.

After fouling her first attempt, she heaved the disc 55.49m (182-0), which at the time moved her from No. 6 to No. 4 in school history. The mark put her in solid position, with most of the throwers in the third flight having gone just a bit farther at their bests so far this year, but she all but secured her NCAA berth with her final-round throw.

She ultimately finished second in the field among the 12 who qualified for nationals, and only 13 women in the entire country had superior marks entering the weekend.

Jemison bettered by 53 centimeters Erin Pendleton's previous school record of 56.87m (186-7) that had stood since 2010. In just her first year competing for the Wolverines, Jemison now owns both the discus and outdoor shot put record, the latter of which she established at 16.92m (55-6.25) at the home Len Paddock Open earlier this month.

The first Wolverine to join Jemison in the NCAA Championships delegation from the evening session was Windemuller, who was rewarded for a frontrunning strategy with not only a berth to Eugene, but also a new career best at 9:49.17.

Windemuller established herself near the front of the race early, and was there to match the move when the lead group winnowed down to four runners, only three of whom would automatically advance, midway through. With two laps to go the group whittled to the three eventual qualifiers with Windemuller holding strong. Sitting in third with a lap to go, she moved to second with just over 200 meters to go and successfully navigated the last water jump and dry barrier in a sprint to the line.

In her first full year as a steeplechaser, Windemuller now ranks No. 3 in school history with Saturday's performance and gives Michigan a recent streak with NCAA qualifiers in this event in four of the past five editions of the championships.

Laurencin kept the qualifying streak going in the next event as she earned an automatic berth with a narrow third-place finish in her opening heat in 13.28 (-0.3m/s). The first-year Wolverine ran in fourth by fractions of a second for much of the race until she started to close the margin around hurdle seven.

By the penultimate ninth hurdle she was running even with Alexis Glasco of Coastal Carolina, and pulled ahead of her before going over the 10th and final hurdle. She maintained that fraction of a step advantage through the line as she leaned to get the third-and-final automatic berth in the heat by 0.05 seconds.

This marks the second year in a row for Laurencin at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, where as a Wolverine in 2022 she will look to improve on her 19th-place finish as a Texas Longhorn in 2021.

Holman put an exclamation point on her own second-straight NCAA Outdoor Championships qualification as she clocked a school-record 51.25 in a runner-up photo finish to take third overall.

Not only did the time qualify her for NCAAs and improve upon her own 51.41 from this meet a year ago, it also made her eligible to compete at the USATF Championships this summer and the World Championships after that, should she qualify at USATFs.

Coming off the final turn, she was third in a breakaway group of three who were in strong position for the three automatic qualifying berths, but Holman pushed for more. She pulled into second place with less than 50 meters to go, just off the shoulder of leader Alexis Holmes of Kentucky. She overtook Holmes with less than 30 to go, but was unable to shake her as Holmes managed to just outlean her at the line by .01 seconds.

The Michigan run on NCAA Championships qualifiers came to its conclusion in the 800-meter quarterfinals, where Rynda qualified for her third straight individual NCAA Championships between indoors and outdoors.

Just like in her Big Ten title performance two weekends ago, Rynda once more needed to summon a come-from-behind, season-best effort to clinch her spot as she went from fifth to second in the final 100 meters in 2:03.63 for sixth overall.

After coming through the bell with one lap to go in second-to-last place, Rynda swung up to fifth place with 300 meters to go. She held off a would-be challenger for fifth around the final curve, and emerged onto the homestretch in fifth, right along the rail on the inside of lane one. She moved up to fourth place and then bypassed a Florida State runner on the inside to step up into third. Rynda weaved into lane two to overtake Penn State's Rachel Gearing, the Big Ten bronze medalist, for second and held on to that spot to clinch her trip to Eugene.

The performance was her best of the outdoor season by more than two seconds, and foreshadows a return to the form she showed during the indoor season when she earned first-team All-America honors and ran historic times at both 600 and 800 meters.

Though they did not advance to the NCAA Championships, the 4x100 relay quartet of Ameia Wilson, Hanna Hearn, Hannah Waller and BreeAna Bates did manage to break the school record with a time of 44.78 seconds for 16th overall.

The Wolverines, who entered with the 24th-and-final seed, broke the previous record of 45.01 that had stood since the 1998 Big Ten Championships.

Those who qualified will close out their 2022 collegiate seasons at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., on June 9 and 11.

Michigan Results

Q/q = qualified for the next round

400 meter dash
Quarterfinals
3. Ziyah Holman / 51.25Q [U-M Record] (NCAA Qualifier)

First Round
10. Ziyah Holman / 52.23Q

800 meter run
Quarterfinals
6. Aurora Rynda / 2:03.63Q (NCAA Qualifier)

First Round
14. Aurora Rynda / 2:05.20Q

1,500 meter run
First Round
35. Sam Tran / 4:22.06

Steeplechase
Quarterfinals
5. Kayla Windemuller / 9:49.17Q [New PR] (NCAA Qualifier)
25. Alice Hill / 10:19.43

100 meter hurdles
Quarterfinals
9. Aasia Laurencin / 13.28Q [-0.3m/s] (NCAA Qualifier)

First Round
4. Aasia Laurencin / 13.06Q [+0.5m/s] [New PR]