June 5, 2006
SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(NASHVILLE) Saturday was a good day for Tiger sophomore Trisa Nickoley (Tecumseh, Kan.) as she improved her personal best by over 1.5 seconds, running a 2:05.03, 800-meter race at the Music City Distance Festival in Nashville, Tenn., at Vanderbilt University. Nickoley's time puts her in the season's top 20 among American collegians and professionals and seemingly qualifies her for the AT&T USA Track & Field Championships to be held in Indianapolis later this month.
While Nickoley was essentially the last-one out in qualifying for an at-large bid for this week's NCAA Championships, running a previous season best and previous collegiate-career best of 2:07.25 in a third-place finish at the Big 12 Championships, she said after her conference race that she felt a new boost of confidence, one that may have helped her Saturday. In high school, at the 2004 Kansas Relays, she set a personal best of 2:06.67 and has since tried to better that mark, but, to no avail.
The automatic-qualifying standard ("A") for the USATF Championships was set at 2:05.00 for the women's 800-meter run. Nickoley's time is just off that in the provisional ("B") category, but should be strong enough to get her in the field of 24.
Missouri will have six male and female, former and current collegians competing in the AT&T USATF Championships in the event among the combined fields of 48. Ashley Patten, who is running in the NCAA Championships this weekend, will join Nickoley on the women's side. On the men's side, the same quartet who qualified for last year's national championship, Derrick Peterson, Timothy Dunne, Marcus Mayes, and Neville Miller, will be there again in 2006. Mayes is running in the NCAA Championships this weekend.
Tiger post-collegian Timothy Dunne ran a 1:47.18 at the Music City meet in a winning effort last weekend, just two-hundredths of a second off of his personal best and meet record (1:47.16).
Preview of NCAA Championships Tomorrow
Look tomorrow for a preview of Missouri's appearance in the NCAA Track & Field Championships, a meet that starts in Sacramento on Wednesday.