HPU’s Emery Advances in NCAA 100-Meter Preliminary

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Sophomore Evan Emery qualified for the second round in the 100-meter dash in his first trip to the NCAA Preliminaries on Thursday afternoon in Jacksonville, Fla. Emery will compete in the second round on Friday and juniors Jacob Smith and Dakota Peachee will compete in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

In the first event on Thursday, freshman Christian Spaulding placed 20th in the javelin.

“Evan and Christian were both solid today,” said HPU head coach Mike Esposito. “Christian threw over 63 meters as a freshman and 66 meters made the national final. He’s going in the right direction. Evan did what he needed to do to advance. He had a good start and he needs to take the next step tomorrow.”

Emery placed 12th overall and second in his heat of the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.48. The top three finishers in each heat automatically qualified for the second round on Friday at 6:30 p.m.

Spaulding placed 20th out of 46 competitors with a distance of 63.62 meters (208-8) on his third throw. Competing in the first of three preliminary flights, he threw the javelin 63.13 meters (207-1) on his first attempt. The two distances were the second- and third-best throws of his career.

Spaulding has a season best of 64.45 meters (211-5) in the javelin, which placed him third in the Big South Championship. He qualified for the U.S. Junior National Championship and will compete in that meet June 15-17 in Bloomington, Ind.

Also on Friday, both Smith and Peachee will compete in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at 8:50 p.m. Smith’s season-best time of 8:54.56 ranks him 16th going into the competition while Peachee’s 9:02.70 ranks him 45th. Peachee’s career best is 8:58.72 from 2010.

The top 12 finishers from each event move on to the NCAA Final, which will be held June 6-9 at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa.