Walter Henning, the St. Anthony’s graduate whose exploits in high school helped draw interest in the weight and hammer throws to the New York City area, finished 3rd in the NCAA hammer throw on Thursday for LSU, effectively wrapping up his throwing career at age 22.
Henning, a criminal justice major, had announced earlier that he was retiring after these championships to begin a professional career.
He threw 226-5, 13 feet off his personal best, finishing behind two throwers from Virginia Tech. In 5th place was Alec Faldermeyer, the freshman from Minisink Valley, who threw 221-4 for UCLA.
Fortunately for them, the hammer competition was concluded before the rains came. Storms arrived in the early evening and two hours later, at 10:15 p.m. local time, the games committee was forced to suspend the competition for the remainder of Thursday night. Still to be completed were the men’s 10k final, most of the 4x4 preliminaries, Round 6 of a dramatic men’s long jump, and the last two events – the javelin throw and 1,500 meters – of the men’s decathlon.
The chronic disruption of these championships by severe weather in the Midwest has become a constant, as this has also taken place in recent years at the University of Texas, University of Arkansas and three years ago here in Des Moines, Iowa. The NCAA meet is scheduled to return to Drake University in 2012, before going to Eugene, Ore., in 2013 and 2014.
As of late Thursday night, it had not been announced when the meet would resume on Friday or when the delayed events would be rescheduled.
Qualifying was held on Thursday in the short hurdles, 200, 1,500 and the women’s steeplechase; finals were held in the women’s high jump and javelin and the men’s hammer and long jump, and the women’s heptathlon got underway.
The New York native Brigetta Barrett, a sophomore at the University of Arizona who spent two years at Ketcham H.S. before moving to Texas, was the only jumper to clear 6-1 ¼ and thus won the women’s high jump. Barrett then passed 6-2 ¼ before missing three times at 6-3 ½, her only misses of the competition.
Three New Yorkers advanced to the 1,500 finals. In the women’s competition, Lucy Van Dalen of Stony Brook, despite falling, finished 2nd in Heat I behind Renee Tomlin of Georgetown and advanced.
“Someone went down and I thought it was clear,” Van Dalen said, “but I just went down straight after. I just got myself together, stayed at pace and prayed…. I was really stoked to get out there, and I just kind-of went out slowly and didn’t panic."
The person who went down was Brittany Sheffey, of Tennessee and Bellport, L.I. Sheffey finished a nonqualifying 11th but was later added to the final field on appeal. Sheffey also went down in the prelims of last year’s NCAA meet.
Tomlin ran 4:18.34, Van Dalen 4:18.50. Heat II was won by Morgane Gay of Virginia, 4:14.72, just ahead of two Oregon Ducks, Becca Friday and Jorday Hasay, and Villanova’s Sheila Reid.
In the men’s 1,500 semis, Binghamton’s Erik Van Ingen had a big finish to come up for 3rd and a qualifying spot, in a race won handily by Matthew Centrowitz of Oregon. Matthew Gibney of Villanova advanced out of Heat II.
“I have not lost a 1,500 all season,” said Centrowitz, the son of the former Power Memorial and Manhattan College runner Matt Centrowitz. “Having that thought in my head will give me momentum going into Saturday’s final. Just to have a shot at a title is exciting.”
In the heptathlon, the Pennsylvania native Ryann Krais used lifetime bests in the hurdles, high jump and 200 to take the first-day lead with 3,585 points, 34 points ahead of Chelsea Carrier of West Virginia. Krais had marks of 13.56 in the hurdles, 5-10 high jump, 38-9 shot put and 24.41 in the 200. As for Day 2, Krais, now a junior at Kansas State, said, “Right now, I’m not even worried about that. A lot of times, I let myself get very anxious, and I’ve been working recently to let things be.”
One of the other favorites in the event, Chantae McMillan of Nebraska, failed to clear a height in the high jump and withdrew.
In the decathlon, after eight events, Miller Moss of Clemson had a 200-point lead with two events remaining. Sitting in 4th was the Duke freshman Curtis Beach, who got close after a PR 15-9 in the vault.
The Duke team was also still celebrating Wednesday night’s historic win in the women’s 10,000 by sophomore Juliet Bottorff, the first NCAA championship ever by a Duke woman in outdoor track and field.
Entering the final lap,"I was feeling great, but I did not know what other people were feeling,” Bottorff said. “I did not look back. I just focused on what was straight ahead." The weather was cool on Thursday but had been hot and humid for the 10k on Wednesday. "I love the heat and it does not bother me at all,” said Bottorff, a graduate of the Tatnall School in Wilmington, Del. “I am from North Carolina, and it has been in the 90s the last two weeks. If the heat can be my advantage, I will take it."In the team competition, one of Florida’s top longjumpers, Christian Taylor, failed to make that final and will not score in the event. With competition suspended, Ngoni Makusha of Florida State was leading with a big jump of 27-6 ¾ Seven others had jumped 26 feet or better.The Texas A&M women’s team lost both its 100-meter hurdlers, Natasha Ruddock and Gabby Mayo, both of whom fell in their respective heats. Another of the women’s contenders, Oregon, advanced two runners each in the 1,500 and steeplechase along with its 4x400 team. One of the Ducks’ steeplechase qualifiers was the New Jersey freshman Lanie Thompson, who ran a lifetime-best 10:03.74, joining another Garden Stater, Ashley Higginson, who qualified for Princeton. The Oregon 4x4 team won Heat II of the 4x4, just ahead of Penn State, with New York freshman Phyllis Francis handling the third leg. It was at that point, with Heat III still to be contested, that the stadium was cleared because of the conditions.