Woods advanced to the NCAA 200-dash semifinals, finishing 12th overall. |
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Woods Finishes 12th at Her First-Ever NCAA Outdoor Championships
June 9, 2005
Sacramento, Calif. - Charlotte 49er sophomore Shareese Woods advanced to the semifinal round of the 200-meter dash on Thursday, and ultimately finished 12th overall at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Hornet Stadium.
On Thursday afternoon, Woods ran a time of 23.42 in the preliminary round of the 200 dash to earn one of 18 spots in the evening's semifinals. She finished fourth in heat four of the prelims, and advanced with the 13th-best time overall.
Later that evening, Woods logged a time of 23.43 while running in the second heat, earning 12th place overall. The top four competitors in each heat and the next best time advanced to Saturday's championship race.
A native of Fort Lee, Va., Woods ran a personal best and school record time of 23.39 in this event at the East Region Championships to qualify for the national competition. But even that time would not have been fast enough to qualify against this heady competition.
Shareese was the final Charlotte athlete to compete at the 2005 Championships.
Senior Derrick Johnson finished 11th overall in the 100-meter dash on Wednesday, advancing to the semifinals but missing out on a berth in the championship race by a mere three one-thousandths of a second.
Redshirt junior Cassie Ficken missed qualifying for the 5,000-meter championship by just one spot, finishing 17th overall in the preliminary round.
2005 marked the second straight year that Charlotte had three competitors advance to the Outdoor Championships, and this was the third NCAA national meet in a row at which multiple 49ers competed. In addition, the 49ers have had at least one female competitor advance to five straight NCAA Championships, dating back to the 2003 Outdoor meet.
In the 100 dash semifinals on Wednesday night, Johnson was edged out by Wes Felix of Southern Cal at the finish line by the narrowest of margins. Felix captured the fourth and final automatic qualification in the second heat with a time of 10.483. In a literal photo finish, Charlotte's Johnson was clocked at 10.486.
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Johnson had advanced to the semifinals by finishing fourth in the second heat of the preliminary round, earning the final automatic qualification in his heat.
In the final event on Wednesday night, around 1:00 a.m. Eastern time (10:00 Pacific), Ficken finished 17th out of 26 competitors in the 5,000-meter run. She was clocked at 10:35.78, just over four seconds behind the final qualifying spot.
In a race that heavily involves pacing, Ficken ran in the second heat, which overall produced slower times than the preceding flight. The top five times of the night were all run in the first heat, which produced nine of the 16 finalists and three of four at-large spots. Wednesday night's time was about 20 seconds slower than Ficken's personal best and school record time from the East Regional.
