March 29, 2002
FRESNO, Calif. - Ten San Diego State athletes and two Aztec relay teams earned the right to advance to the finals of the Cal-Nevada Championships placing within the top eight in 10 preliminary events on Friday. The meet is being held at Warmerdam Field on the Fresno State campus.
Representing the Aztecs in tomorrow's 100-meter dash finals will be junior Melinda Smedley, who raced to a time of 12.33 in the prelims. Smedley also earned a spot in the 200 meters finals after clocking in at 24.00 in the prelims.
Smedley will be joined in the 200 meters by three other Aztecs, sophomores Tonette Dyer (23.91) and Hollann Givens (24.62) and junior Jini Hogg (24.58). Dyer, Givens and Hogg will also race in Saturday's 400 meters final.
Junior Jennifer Stakiw will compete in the finals of the 800 meters after setting a time of 2:14.37 in the prelims and juniors Leslie Miller and Ryan Peters will raced in both the 100 and 400 hurdles.
Earning the right to compete in the finals in field events were freshman Alisha Lasswell in the high jump and freshman Shayla Balentine and junior Jesika Englebretson in the pole vault.
Two SDSU relay teams advanced to Saturday's medal round, with the Aztecs 4x100 squad posting a 45.62 mark and the 4x400 group clocking in at 3:47.13.
SDSU sits in ninth place in team scoring with four points. Nevada leads the 13-team field with 18 points followed by Fresno State (13) and UCLA (11).
Finals were held in the 3,000 meters and the 3,000-meter steeplechase on Friday. SDSU picked up its four points courtesy of a sixth-place finish (11:49.97) by Hillery Gemmill in the steeplechase.
SDSU won last year's Cal-Nevada Championship after scoring 102 of its 110 total points in day two of the meet.
Saturday's finals action gets underway at 8 a.m.