KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The NAIA has officially announced the qualifiers for the 64th annual Men's Outdoor Track and Field National Championships. Embry-Riddle will send 19 athletes to national meet, which will take place at Mickey Miller Blackwell Stadium in Gulf Shores, Ala. next week.
The Eagles will be well represented on the track and in the field.
Rico Saldana looks to lead the way for the ERAU in the field events as he qualified as the second overall seed in the high jump. The senior finished third in the high jump last season to earn All-America honors in the event. The Blue and Gold will also rely heavily on
Richard Maku to score points in the triple jump, as he owns the country's third best mark (14.88m) in the event..
Other Eagles to qualify for field events include freshman
Brodie Lubelski in the shot put, as well as
James Bullock and
Evan Bales in the pole vault. Bullock, who owns the nation's ninth best mark in the pole vault (4.85m), will also compete in the decathlon. Bullock earned All-America honors in the decathlon last year by finishing in seventh place at the national meet.
On the track, ERAU had three individual athletes and three relay teams qualify for the national championships. Three seniors will represent the Eagles in individual events as
Vincent Bett is set to compete in the 3,000m Steeplechase as the eighth seed,
Alec Hernandez will run in the 1500m, and
Jacob Dordick will run in the marathon.
In the 4x100m relay, the Blue and Gold are the 18th seed will be represented by a combination of
Abdullah Carew,
Harish Prasad,
Ricardo Dunbar,
Lonnie Marts, and
Emerson Tyler. The Eagles are also entered in the 4x400m relay as the 11th seed and will run with some combination of Marts, Dunbar, Tyler,
Alex Dori,
Joe Fuller, and
DeVontae Persha.
The final event the Eagles are scheduled to compete in is the 4x800m relay. ERAU's team of
Jamin Mays, Zach Kraus,
James Fell, Hernandez, Fuller, and Persha is the ninth overall seed in the race.
The 2015 NAIA Track and Field National Championships will begin next Thursday, May 21 and continue through Saturday, May 23rd. The first events of the men's decathlon will kick off the national meet on Thursday at 10 a.m.
