WSC Track and Field travels to NCAA Championships

PUEBLO, Colo. - Ryan Haebe won Western State College's second national championship of the weekend with a time of 9 minutes, 0.25 seconds in the 3,000-meter steeplechase to lead the Mountaineer men to a 12-point lead after the second day of the 2012 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships at the Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl on the Colorado State-Pueblo campus.

Haebe's championship was individual national championship No. 99 in Western State history and No. 20 in men's outdoor track and field history. It's the second straight season for a Mountaineer champion in the men's steeplechase and the sixth overall. The Mountaineers have tied the all-time Division II record for individual champions in the men's steeplechase.

Last year's national high jump champion Oliver Harsanyi jumped a program record 7-3 1/4 and tied for the 20th best jump in Division II history to finish as the national runner-up earlier today. It was his sixth All-America honor and his fifth national runner-up performance.

Last year's national steeplechase champion David Goodman earned his third career All-America honor with a fifth-place finish tonight in 9:16.84. Sarah Lyle won her sixth All-America honor in her career with a sixth-place finish in the steeplechase tonight in 10:54.64.

Ryan Walstrom finished one spot out of his second All-America honor in the discus with 168 feet, one inch in a ninth-place finish earlier today. He advanced to the finals on his final throw of the preliminaries and came within an inch of matching that performance in the finals. Walstrom finishes his collegiate career with the Western State program record in the event.

In the high jump, Jon Spruill didn't clear 6-8 3/4 before Harsanyi opened the meet at 6-10 3/4. He didn't use any more than two attempts to clear his first five heights, and cleared his program record jump on his first attempt. Harsanyi was stopped at 7-4 1/2, while Lake Erie's Edward Dudley was able to clear the height on his second attempt.

Rachel Webb ran 2:17.15 and finished fifth in her heat of the 800-meter run, but a fast first heat kept her just short of advancing to tomorrow's finals. She finishes as a three-time RMAC champion between the indoor and outdoor seasons in the event.

The Mountaineer men have accumulated 38 points in the championships, already one more point than last year's total. The top four teams at the championships are recognized with team trophies, and as a point of comparison, last year's fourth-place team had 43 points at the end of the meet. The Mountaineers have only finished in the top five three times in Division II program history.

The Mountaineer women are seventh in the team race with 11 points in the first two days, with Lyle adding three points tonight to last night's total. The teams currently sitting in third through 10th are separated by nine points going into Saturday's final events.

Action for Western State starts at 11 a.m. with Barbara Szabo and Susan Jackson in the women's high jump. From there, it will be a long wait until the Mountaineers wrap up competition with the 5,000-meter runs starting at 8:05 p.m.