The Texas
A&M-Corpus Christi tandem of Hickel Woolery and Shadrack Songok
are slated to begin competition at the NCAA Championship this
Wednesday at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex in Sacramento,
Calif.
Woolery will be
the first of the two Islanders to compete at the NCAA
Championships. The sophomore from Jamaica will compete in the
qualifying round of the discus on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m.
Pacfic ( 9 p.m. in Corpus Christi). The athletes with the top 12
marks plus ties advance to the final held on Friday afternoon.
Woolery missed a
portion of the season – including the Southland Conference
Championship – before returning two weeks ago for the NCAA
Midwest Regional in Des Moines, Iowa. He set a personal and school record in the discus to
place third at the regional with a mark of 57.69 meters (189'6").
The distance was more than 1.5 meters further than his school
record of 56.03 meters at the Texas State Open, which qualified him
for the regional meet.
Songok, who is
competing for the third straight year at national meet will run in
the 10,000-meter run on Thursday night at 8 p.m. Pacific (10 p.m.
locally). Songok, who finished fifth last year to earn All-America
honors and ninth as a freshman in the 5,000-meter run, will be
competing in the 10,000 at the national meet for the first time
this season.
The junior
qualified for the event by running a time of 28:16.47 at the Mt.
SAC Relays, which was the fastest time in the country at the time.
He enters the meet with the fourth-fastest time in the field. Galen
Rupp of Oregon has the field's best time with a mark of 27:33.48.
Songok was also eligible to run in the 5,000-meter run at the
national meet after a fourth-place finish at the Midwest Regional,
but opted to run in just the 10,000.
