Program-best 4 Lopes qualify for NCAA Championships

Wednesday, May 22

Fayetteville, Ark.

Grand Canyon

NCAA West Regional

Photo by: Nathan Peters

5/25/2024 9:56:00 PM | Track and Field

GCU's Archer, Hodge, Oloyede earn spots at West regional to join Tow

By: Nathan Peters

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Grand Canyon qualified four athletes for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships for the first time in program history with a trio of performances coming at this week's NCAA West First Round at Arkansas.

GCU junior Casey Tow (decathlon) already had qualified for the NCAAs with a national top-25 score and will now be joined by graduate teammates Israel Oloyede (hammer throw) and Jack Hodge (pole vault) and senior Joanna Archer (800-meter run) for the June 5-8 national championship meet at Oregon.

The Lopes sent a program-best contingent of 17 athletes to Fayetteville to vie for national spots against the West's best.

Oloyode, who entered this week with the nation's fifth-best hammer throw this season, took sixth place at the NCAA West First Round to advance to nationals. In the final event of the day, Oloyode's best throw of the meet traveled 69.38 meters (227 feet, 7 inches).

Hodge punched his ticket to Eugene, Oregon, for the NCAA Championships by tying for 10th place with a pole vault of 5.32 meters (17 feet, 5 1/2 inches).

Archer ran a personal-best 800 time of 2 minutes, 3.52 seconds to finish eighth in the final. Her time was nearly 3 seconds faster than what she ran (2:06.34) to win the WAC championship in the 800 two weeks ago.

Tow did not compete because decathlon is not a regionals event, and the national bid means he will compete on college track's biggest stage less than 50 miles from his hometown of Sweet Home, Oregon.

By having four athletes qualify, this marks a program best with GCU sending three athletes in one season as the previous best.

GCU senior Erin Brown finished just outside the top 24 who qualify in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. Despite a Lane 2 assignment, Brown finished the 200 with a time of 20.84 seconds, just two-hundredths of a second from the final qualifying spot.

With Brown, the 4x100 meter relay squad that also included junior JoJo Harding, freshman Adam Raska and freshman Dylan Poteat finished Friday's quarterfinal race just one spot short of heading to Eugene. The top 12 advance, and when the dust settled, the Lopes were just five-hundredths of a second away in 13th place.

In the 400-meter race, sophomore Ben Stratman went 47.12 seconds, improving on his time from the WAC Championships but ending his individual season.

The Lopes opened the first day of action with sophomore Ben Moffett in the javelin. He finished 24th in the region with a mark of 65.38 meters (214 feet, 6 inches).

On the women's side Thursday, GCU senior Onome Ogbeni threw a shot put mark of 16.53 meters (54 feet, 2 3/4 inches) for a school record that was less than 20 inches shy of a national qualification.

Another Lopes record dropped Saturday, when junior Taryn Burkett covered 12.89 meters (42 feet, 3 1/2 inches) in the triple jump to take 27th place in the West.

Results can be found here.