Augustana University Athletics

THURSDAY RESULTS

ALLENDALE, Mich. - Four Augustana athletes earned spots in their respective event finals after six Vikings competed on the first day of the NCAA Track and Field Championships on Thursday.
 
Augustana started the day 4-for-4 by qualifying one athlete in each of the men's and women's 1,500-meter and 3,000-meter steeplechase competitions on the first of three days at the NCAA Championships. The men's and women's steeplechase finals will be held tomorrow night and the 1,500-meter finals will take place Saturday afternoon.
 
Leading the way, Harald Karbo clocked the fastest qualifying time after winning the second of two preliminary heats. The Stord, Norway native returns to the NCAA steeplechase final for the second straight season after he recorded a season-best 9:05.86.
 
Kyle Blakeslee moved one step closer to collecting her third women's steeplechase All-American honors as she won her heat and qualified for tomorrow's finals. Blakeslee led every lap and finished with a 10:46.93, the sixth-fastest of the 12 finalists.
 
In the women's 1,500-meter prelim, Kristin Brondbo held strong in the pack before she broke free and placed fourth in her heat to automatically earn a spot in the women's 1,500-meter final. Brondbo's 4:29.84 comes into the final as the 10th-fastest of the 12-athlete final field.
 
Henrik Hansson used a late surge to provide Augustana with their first finalist as his time was fast enough to place him in the Saturday afternoon final. Sitting in the back of the pack until the final lap, Hansson passed four runners in the final 400 meters and finished with a time of 3:52.86 which is the seventh-fastest of the 12 qualifiers.
 
In a stacked field, Kayla Mescher clocked a 1:01.64 in the 400-meter hurdles to finish fifth in her heat and ninth overall. The top nine runners advanced to the final, but Mescher came up just under a second shy of reaching the finals in her first NCAA Championship appearance. Mescher will run the anchor leg of the women's 4x400-meter relay team in tomorrow night's final.
 
Meritxell Delgado competed in the Vikings' only first-day final as she ran in the women's 10,000-meter race, but couldn't record a top-eight finish to garner All-American honors. Delgado's attempts to move up in the pack were stifled early and she fell back in the pack but wouldn't go quietly. The Barcelona, Spain native battled back to pass four runners and finish 17th with a time of 36:40.
 
Augustana will have seven athletes in competition on day two. Karbo and Blakeslee compete in the only finals tomorrow in the men's and women's 3,000-meter steeplechase, respectively. Aduo Omot will race in the men's 800-meter prelims and the women's 4x400-meter relay team of Mescher, Colleen Everson, Carina Hofmeister, and Anne Parsley look for a spot in the finals as the final event of day two.