May 27, 2016
RESULTS
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- David Lucas and Isaiah Harris punched their tickets to the 2016 NCAA Championships Friday afternoon at the NCAA East Preliminary on the campus of the University of North Florida.
The freshman duo of Lucas and Harris qualified for their first outdoor championships; Harris will make his second appearance on the big stage having participated in the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships, while Lucas will make his first appearance at an NCAA Championship meet.
Lucas advanced to the national meet finishing fifth in the men's discus throw posting a mark of 59.62m (195'-7") to improve on his personal best mark by over 10-feet while moving into the No. 3 spot on the all-time performance list.
"David's workouts lately have been good," said Penn State throws coach Patrick Ebel.
"The great thing about David is he's a technician so any time I tell him to make adjustments he can do it and usually it happens right away, he's obviously a great athlete so it's easy for him to make the adjustments and have the results he had today. His first throw landed right against the 60-meter marker just foul outside the sector. I told David to make an adjustment a little bit to the left with his feet and line it up a little more on the next throw and he got that big PR. It's not really that surprising because he's been doing it all year, he's just starting to trust the training, the progression, and the process and we're going to see results like this in the near future with much bigger throws."
"There's never a better time to throw a PR," said Lucas.
"It's so exciting! These two weeks since Big Ten's I made sure that I had my head on straight because I wanted to make NCAA's really bad. I think it's a statement to qualify for the national meet as a freshman. There were a lot of mental reps throughout the week, and I couldn't be happier about my performance today."
Isaiah Harris, the freshman from Lewiston, Maine, advanced to the NCAA meet by grabbing an automatic qualifying spot finishing in the top three of his heat while finishing the quarterfinal with the second-fastest time of the night at 1:46.52.
"I was just trying to be strategic in that race by going for place and not time," said Harris.
"I went out there and competed, which is what Gondak had preached to us all season. I knew I was sitting around fourth at the quarter and I knew if I held my ground it would put me in a good position to strike at the end and it worked out for me. I feel blessed, there are a lot of people who wish they were in my shoes so I'm just trying to make sure to enjoy every moment of it and take it all in."
"Isaiah has been an outstanding competitor the entire season," said head coach John Gondak.
"We knew he had a challenging heat, Brandon McBride is the No. 1 seed in the NCAA right now. The focus was that (McBride) would take it out and Isaiah could go along for the ride and compete the last 200-meters and that's exactly what he did. He put himself in position with another 1:46 and advanced on to the NCAA meet."
Competing in the discus throw with Lucas was Jon Yohman who finished competition in the event posting a mark of 54.15m (177'-8") to take 21st overall.
Obeng Marfo, who entered the meet with a season-best mark of 52.03m (170'-8"), finished the women's discus throw with a best of 48.88m (160'-4") finishing 28th overall.
Ryan Kerr competed in the men's javelin throw completing the event with a best mark of 63.67m (208'-10") finishing 22nd in the event. Kerr entered the event with a season best mark of 69.72m (228'-8") set in late April at the 2016 Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Pa.
In the women's pole vault, Hannah Mulhern finished tied for 27th-place with a best clearance of 3.95m (12'-11.5") on the day.
Megan McCloskey (21st) and Ahmenah Richardson (32nd) finished women's high jump with marks of 1.71m (5'-7.25") and 1.66m (5'-5.25"), respectively.
Malik Moffett, the final Nittany Lion competitor of the day, clocked a time of 21.05 in the men's 200-meters first-round to finish 30th overall.
Penn State will return for day three of the NCAA East Preliminary as the Nittany Lions are set to compete in four events on the track (men's 4x100-meter relay, men's 1,500-meters, women's 5,000-meters, and men's 4x400-meter relay) as well as five field events (men's and women's triple jump, men's and women's shot put, and men's high jump).
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