LA CROSSE, Wis. --- ODAC student-athletes increased their representation by one from the national indoor championships as eight standouts from conference member programs are set to compete at the 2018 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Veterans Memorial Field Sports Complex in La Crosse, Wis., this week. Action begins on Thursday, May 24, and continues thru Saturday, May 26.
Those eight league stars will compete in nine total events. Bridgewater College senior Amber Celen leads contingent in terms of participation as she will compete in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes. Roanoke College first-year speedster Quinn Harlan will join Celen in the 100-meter event. Two more ODAC women's competitors will feature in the 1,500-meter run. Virginia Wesleyan University's Marissa Coombs and Lynchburg College's Natalie Deacon make it two straight years of head-to-head competition in the event's field.
The remaining women's entry belongs to Roanoke's Mara Briggs. She carries the ODAC banner in the high jump, making her the lone ODAC women's competitor in a field event.
Three men dot the national start lists. Bridgewater sprinter Davonta Womack joins the 100-meter dash field, while Eastern Mennonite University hurdler Connor Faint highlights the 400-meter hurdles contingent. Fellow Royals teammate Grant Amoateng qualified for championship contention in the triple jump.
RELATED: Men's Accepted Entries | Women's Accepted Entries
For each men’s individual event contested, including the decathlon, the top 20 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition. For each women’s individual event contested, including the heptathlon, the top 22 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition. For each relay event contested, the top 16 declared relay teams, one per institution, were accepted into the competition.
RELATED ITEMS: Championship Results and Meet Information
Celen earned her 10th and 11th career All-American awards at the indoor championships. If she is to add to that total this weekend, she has some work to do to finish in the top-eight. Celen, the reigning NCAA champion and ODAC record-holder (11.63) in the outdoor 100-meter dash, is slotted 15th in the start list at 12.09 seconds. She has a few extra spots to make up in the 200-meter dash, which she is certainly capable of doing as she set the conference standard (23.87) while finishing second overall in last season's event. She is slotted 18th entering the weekend at 24.77. All competitors in that event look up the chart at Wadeline Jonathas from the University of Massachusetts-Boston, who owns the nation's top time at 23.29.
Harlan was the runner-up in the indoor 60-meter dash and is poised for a possible duplicate effort -- or better -- in the outdoor 100-meter sprint as she closes out her dual ODAC Rookie of the Year campaign. Harlan sits second in the field at 11.78, trailing only the 11.58 mark posted by Tyra Abraham from Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
For Coombs and Deacon, a repeat of last season's showing in the 1,500-meter run would be quite a feat. Coombs eclipsed the previous stadium record (SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio) and set a new conference benchmark in finishing second overall at 4:25.29. Deacon stopped the watches a few spots behind in seventh at 4:30.90. The duo's positioning is a bit more spread out entering this year's race. Coombs sits third at 4:29.49, while Deacon is 15th at 4:32.69. Both have work to do to catch the event's top time of 4:15.77 posted by Ohio Northern University's Emily Richards.
Briggs got her first taste of national competition at the this season's indoor championships. She placed 12th overall in the high jump at 1.60 meters (5-3.00). She is well-positioned entering the outdoor affair as she is one of three athletes tied for fourth at 1.70 meters (5-7.00). Emma Egan from Williams College is the top seed at 1.73 meters (5-8.00), which is just one inch higher than Briggs' mark.
Womack will be looking for a bit of redemption in the men's 100-meter dash. At the indoor championships in March, Womack just missed the finals of the 60-meter dash via a photo finish with two other athletes. The Eagles' speedster looks to leave no doubt this weekend as he slots 17th in the 100-dash at 10.64 seconds. Ernest Winters from host University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Parker Witt from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater -- who was one of the competitors involved in the photo finish with Womack -- are the top seeds in the event with a time of 10.42.
EMU's duo of Faint and Amoateng return for their second appearances in the national field. Faint earned All-American honors in the 400-meter hurdles last season by placing eighth at 52.98. His seed time is more than a second faster than last year's final run, slotting him fourth at 51.89. Peter Girardi from St. John Fisher College tops the list at 50.95. Amoateng just missed out on All-America laurels in 2017 after placing 13th in the triple jump at 14.16 meters (46-5.50). His qualifying mark of 14.71 meters (48-3.25) is almost two-feet better than last season's posting in Ohio, but the field is also deeper. Amoateng is seeded 12th among the 20 competitors, all of whom trail the 15.57-meter (51-1.00) top-seeded mark of Luther Newburn from Benedictine University.
RELATED ITEMS: Championship Heat Sheets
Links for live results are available via www.ncaa.com. For more information, visit the websites of any of the participating issues, or go to the ODAC's home on the Internet at www.odaconline.com. Don't forget to become a fan of the ODAC on Facebook and follow @odacathletics on Twitter and Instagram.