Gainesville, Fla. (May 25, 2007)-- Jon Hart and Tyler Trout overtook Manhattan hammer throwers Zoran Loncar and Seid Mujanovic in the final round of Friday's competition to steal automatic qualification into June's NCAA Championships from the two Jaspers throwers. Two Manhattan women, Diane Torsell and Malin Marmbrandt, also competed on day one of the NCAA East Region Championships at the James G. Pressly Stadium.
Following the preliminary round, Mujanovic sat fourth overall with Loncar one place behind holding the final automatic berth. Neither the rookie Mujanovic nor the senior Loncar managed to improve on their preliminary marks of 62.08m and 62.07m, respectively, allowing Hart (66.81m) and Trout (62.25m) to leapfrog up the standings. Two weeks ago, Hart, who hails from Liberty University, stole the IC4A hammer title from Loncar in similar fashion. Hart produced the winning mark on his final attempt to overtake Loncar.
Both Mujanovic and Loncar must now wait until the end of the weekend to see if they earn an at-large bid to Sacramento, Calif. for the national championships.
MAAC women's long jump champion Malin Marmbrandt placed 18th in the regional field by jumping 5.86m. Marmbrandt set a new personal best with her performance and missed equaling the school record by one centimeter.
Torsell, a freshman, won the MAAC women's 100m and 200m titles three weeks ago in Lawrenceville, N.J., and on Friday she ran both events in Gainesville, Fla. She clocked in at 12.16s for the 100m and set a new personal record with a 200m time of 25.54s.
Two-time NCAA All-American Milan Jotanovic along with a number of other Jaspers will be in action on Saturday. Jotanovic, a reigning back-to-back IC4A Champion, will compete in the men's shot. Senior Tiina Magi will compete in the women's triple jump, while junior Dexter Jules is entered in the men's field. Junior Chris Sole is penciled in for the high jump.
