TWO FERRIS TRACK & FIELD ATHLETES TO COMPETE IN NATIONAL MEET

Jenny Irwin & Kamitra Carroll Headed To NCAA-II Outdoor Championships

Headed To Nationals

Ferris State's Kamitra Carroll (top) and Jenny Irwin (bottom) will compete in the 2005 NCAA-II Outdoor Track & Field Championships

The final meet participants were selected and announced Tuesday (May 17) by the NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Committee.

A total of 620 student-athletes qualified for the meet by reaching the automatic or provisional standards established for each event. The national championships will be hosted by Abilene Christian.

Irwin will compete in the 1,500-meter run and enters the national meet with the sixth-best (4:30.11) mark of 16 individuals selected to compete in the event. Her qualifying race is slated to begin Thursday (May 26) at 6:35 p.m. (EDT) with the finals set for Saturday (May 28) beginning at 8 p.m. (EDT).

The Bulldogs will be represented in the shot put by Carroll, who's seed mark (47-3.75) ranks seventh overall of 19 throwers. The women's shot put preliminary and final competition will be held Friday (May 27) at 5 p.m. (EDT).

Irwin has currently posted two individual first-place finishes in the 1,500 meters during the outdoor campaign while Carroll has won the shot put four times to date this season.

Both individuals also competed in the 2005 NCAA-II Indoor Championships (March 11-12) held at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, Mass. Irwin took 11th place in the mile run (4:58.38) and earned All-America kudos as part of the school's eighth-place distance medley relay team (11:56.52) which also included juniors Leanna Wolf (Fountain/Mason County Central) and Geneva Jones (Detroit/Cooley) along with freshman Chandra Robinson (Warren/Mott). Carroll finished 11th in the shot put (44-2) at the national indoor meet.

The Bulldog women's outdoor track and field team placed sixth under head coach Jeff Kavalunas with 64.50 points at the 2005 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) Outdoor Championships (May 5-6) held at Grand Valley State's Lubbers Stadium in Allendale, Mich.

Ferris State has had 10 different women's student-athletes earn outdoor All-America recognition in school history heading into this season's national meet. The school's most recent outdoor All-America showing came in 2002 when former student-athlete Tianna Kirkland placed among the top eight individuals in both the shot put and discus.

This season marks the second consecutive year Irwin has been chosen to compete in the national outdoor meet as she placed 11th overall in the 1,500 meters (4:40.73) as FSU's lone representative at the 2004 NCAA-II Outdoor Championships (May 27-29) held in Walnut, Calif.