Jaworski, Crook, Calvo head to NCAAs

The Quakers will be heading to the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Sacramento, Calif., next week with a veteran, a rookie and a late entrant. Junior Courtney Jaworski will return to the NCAA Championships for the second straight year after finishing third in the 800-meter finals at the NCAA East Regional last weekend. His teammate, freshman Kyle Calvo, will head to the West Coast after claiming second in the long jump. On the women's side, senior pole vaulter Sam Crook earned an at-large bid to the championships after finishing in a three-way tie for seventh at Regionals. Jaworski almost did not make it past the preliminaries. He had the slowest qualifying time of any of the eight finalists with a 1:50.31 -- good for second in his heat -- which earned him a spot in the finals. Jaworski proved he belonged, however, running 1:50.1 in the finals -- earning him third place on Saturday. The relatively slow time in both the prelims and the finals did not surprise men's coach Charlie Powell. "I just kind of told him to punch your ticket to nationals and Courtney did that quite well," Powell said. "Now we believe he's really ready to go and run fast." Calvo had his best jump on his first attempt, leaping 7.61 meters. He was narrowly beaten by South Carolina's Greig Cryer, who hit 7.65. "I like to get after the first one," Calvo said. "It is a lot easier to put it out in the first jump than it is in the others because there is no real pressure." The freshman will have to deal with even more pressure when he heads to Sacramento, but Powell is confident that Calvo's experience from high school nationals will serve him well. He is "not in awe, [he is] not freaked out by the fact that everyone else is really good," Powell said. He "thrives on the situation and that's what the great athletes do." Calvo was not sure if he even had a shot at nationals, so qualifying was just icing on the cake. "I'm just having fun now. I have three more years after this." Powell, however, believes that Calvo could make some noise at the championships. "Basically, it all depends on his ability to stay cool and keep his focus. He has a great shot at making the finals, but it's going to take another 7.6-meter jump or better," the coach said. Crook had to wait a little longer to find out if she qualified after finishing outside of the top five at regionals and missing out on an automatic bid. However, four more vaulters were given at-large bids based on their best jumps throughout the season and Crook's vault of 13 feet 1 inch at the ECAC Championships on May 13 was her ticket to California. "I was just really, really nervous and anxious," Crook said. "I knew I was going to be either the last person to make it or the first person not to make it. It's kind of been my goal since freshman year to go to nationals, and this year I was so close." Once she found she made the cut she was ecstatic. "I'm just thrilled to be going." One of the meets biggest stories was Neil Wojdowski's failure to clear a height in the pole vault. The senior narrowly missed the finals at the NCAA meet last year and was an All-American contender. "That's just the way it goes sometimes. He was very disappointed of course," Powell said. "It's not the best way to go out but, he had four great years." Sophomore Grafton Ifill just missed out on the finals in both the 100m and 200m dashes, finishing 10th and ninth, respectively. The top eight qualified for the final. "Not much went wrong. He's had a great season," Powell said. "It's just when you run against some of the SEC guys, you run against some of the best guys in the world." Two school records fell for the women this weekend as senior Claire Duncan shattered her own school record in the 3000m steeplechase by nearly 10 seconds. She finished in a time of 10:29.33 -- 10th place at the meet. The 4x400m relay team of Jesse Carlin, Shaunee Morgan, Dana McCurdy and Izu Emeagwali continued their assault on the school record. They broke their own mark with a time of 3:39.09, finishing in eighth place. The women finished in 38th place and the men were 13th.

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