March 9, 2005

Marc Kellman, Ryan McCoy, Ricardo Melbourne and Richard Phillips received some good (and expected) news on Tuesday night when the foursome was notified that they would be competing in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships this weekend in Fayetteville, Ark.

All four had provisionally qualified for the meet but without automatic qualifying marks, they needed to wait for official word. It was no surprise that Olympic semifinalist Richard Phillips and teammate Ricardo Melbourne were given bids to run in the 60-meter hurdles. Both had run one of the eight fastest times in the nation this season.

Phillips earned All-American honors at last year's Indoor Championships. He qualified with a time of 7.74 seconds, the fifth fastest time this year. Melbourne qualified in 7.76 seconds, eighth fastest. Fourteen competitors were invited to participate in the event.

Kellman and McCoy weren't locks but they were both among the top 15 in the nation this season. Kellman qualified with a leap of 15.89 meters, the ninth-best distance this year, and just .02 meters from being the seventh-best. McCoy's 15.84 meters put him at 13th on the year. Fifteen competitors qualified with 15.83 meters being the cutoff mark.

The 60-meter hurdles preliminaries will be run at 5:20 p.m. on Friday with the finals taking place at 7:25 p.m. on Saturday. The triple jump will be just one round of preliminaries and finals. That will take place on Saturday at 5:45 p.m.