DELAWARE, OH - Four members of the Tufts women's outdoor track & field team finished among the top eight to garner All-American honors at the 2011 NCAA Div. III Championships held Thursday through Saturday at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Senior tri-captain Kanku Kabongo (Abington, MA), senior Amy Wilfert (Westborough, MA), junior Nakeisha Jones (Boston, MA) and sophomore Kelly Allen (Norton, MA) all finished among the best in the nation to cap an outstanding season for Coach Kristen Morwick's team. The 14 points Tufts scored as a team tied for 13th at the Championships.
Allen had the top Tufts finish, taking fourth in the discus throw on Saturday with a 147'6" (44.96m) distance. She added five points to the Tufts total. In the triple jump on Friday, Kabongo placed fifth with a 38'4 3/4" (11.70m) mark, scoring four points, and Jones was seventh at 38'3 1/4" (11.66m) to score two points. Wilfert placed sixth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase on Friday, crossing the finish line with a 10:36.04 time to score three points. That was a Tufts school record, eclipsing the previous mark of 10:47.64 by Becca Ades in 2006.
Allen scored fourth in the NCAA discus for the second time in as many years. The All-American performance is the first for Kabongo, who qualified in the event last year but did not score. Her triple on Friday was almost five inches longer than the 38'0" (11.58m) that she got into the NCAA meet with. Jones, who placed third in the triple jump last season and in 2009, posted the third NCAA Outdoor All-American honor of her career. Wilfert also earned her first outdoor All-American prize. She was in the 1,500 field in 2009, but was not in the top eight. She had entered the 2011 race as the 15th seed and improved her time by 14 seconds.
Wilfert also had a 12th place finish in the 1,500 meters final on Saturday, running a 4:42.45 time. On Thursday she had qualified for the finals in the event with a 4:32.07 to finish 12th out of 22 competitors in the preliminaries. She was the last qualifier, out-legging the 13th place finisher by 1.24 seconds to take the final spot. Her time was 0.63 faster than her 4:32.70 qualifying mark.
Three other Jumbos also competed at the NCAA meet. First year Jana Hieber (Goffstown, NH) was in the 400-meter hurdles on Thursday and placed 20th with a 1:03.42 time. She was not one of the eight in the event to advance to the final. On Friday, sophomore Ronke Oyekunle (Harvard, MA) placed 19th in the NCAA shot put with 42'7 1/2" (12.99m) distance. The pole vault event, which was originally scheduled for Thursday, was moved to Friday due to weather. Tufts junior Heather Theiss (North Woodmere, NY) qualified in the event, but did not clear the bar in any of her NCAA attempts.
By tying for 13th as a team, the Jumbos had their best finish of the past decade.
2011 NCAA Div. III Championships results
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