The NCAA Division 1 Track and Field Championship committee have announced the following athletes who will participate in the Championship Season.

In the multi-events, there is no Regional qualification as the top 24 national performances go directly to Nationals.  Congrats to Nick Huber of Cornell as his personal best of 7,632 has him seeded 13th in the decathlon as he has officially booked his ticket to Iowa.

In the West Regional, former Crimson Dan Chenoweth has qualified in the 5,000m run as the 12th seed in the region.

In the East Region, 120 Ivy League performances have qualified athletes for the next round. Cornell leads the number of qualifying performances with 25 (not including Huber’s direct ticket to Nationals) while Princeton is right behind with 24 performances. Cornell’s women 4×400 relay is the only Ivy League relay team to have qualified for Regionals.

See after the break for the full corrected list.

Congrats to all qualifiers and good luck next week!

3:45.93

This is a very busy time of year on both the national and international track and field circuits.  Here’s what is going down these next few days:

* Early this afternoon, the NCAA Regional Qualifiers will be announced.  It is possible to have nearly 100 Ivy Leaguers, 2 Ivy alumni graduate students, and 2 relay teams qualify for the Regional meets that take place next week.  If these athletes place in the top 16 at Regionals, then they have qualified for the national meet at Drake University from June 7^th through 9^th.  We will post the qualifiers later this afternoon.

* On Saturday , the next addition of the Samung Diamond League Track and Field series will take place in Shanghai, China.  According to the entry lists, our own Samyr Laine will be representing Haiti in the triple jump.  Also, the IAAF is running a fantasy league this year, where fans can pick the athletes for a fantasy team.  The team will earn points based on the athletic performances at the different Diamond League meets.  It is free.  HepsTrack is currently sponsoring a little league, where currently, Alejandro Shepard’s “Splendid Steeplechasers” leads the standings.  Check the photo, he’s gearing up for this weekend.  Feel free to join us (look for the league pin 111928)!  But head’s up: you will need to fill out your squad before 5:30 AM EST on Saturday in order for your picks to count for this meet.

* Meanwhile, if you happen to live on the West Coast, we HIGHLY recommend making any and all efforts to go to Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA as the most competitive meet on American soil outside of NCAAs and the Olympic Trials will take place.  The USATF Oxy High Performance Meet is going to be loaded with athletic talent who will be chasing the Olympic Trials and Games standards.  How do we know?  Take a look at the start list and the Ivy matchups below:

• Delilah vs Ashley Higginson and Donn Cabral in the steeplechase.
• Kate Grace and Brian Hill vs Liam Boyaln-Pett in the 800m.
• Morgan Uceny vs Anna Pierce in the 1500m.
• Liz Costello in the 5k.

But if you can’t find a way to get to LA, head over to flotrack as they will be doing a live stream of the meet, beginning around 9:20 EST on Friday.

* The New Balance Boston Twilight Series started last weekend (with Dartmouth and Brown being active participants in the first meet, including Coach Mark Coogan doing a respectable job in the long and triple jumps) and continue this weekend in Lowell, MA.  Rumor has it that Lindsey Scherf will race the 10k this weekend in order to meet the Olympic Trials standard.

* If the marathon is more of your taste, Sage Canaday is the one of the male headliners for this year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in Portland, OR.

We try to keep everyone up-to-date this weekend on results and any qualification news.

But there are others who care… a lot. And among them are the members of FAST — the Federation of American Statisticians of Track (seriously) — who produce the FAST Annual, which is now part of the USA Track & Field’s media guide.

They parse everything. And a relatively recent debate has been, “What constitutes a college record?”

Garry Hill of Track & Field News decided that his magazine would cut off the college season with the NCAA Championship, which seems like a reasonable timeframe, but FAST has permitted college records well beyond — into the Olympic Games.

The makings of a brouhaha? Not really. Even those at FAST are turning the corner and realizing that Matthew Centrowitz finishing 11th in a race in Paris in July has little to do with his college career. Expect uniformity in the future. And for right now, appreciate T&FN’s all-time top five college performances in the 1,500:

All-Time Collegiate Men’s 1,500m List
Source: Track & Field News (Click here for more)
1. 3:35.30, Sydney Maree (Villanova, June 6, 1981)
2. 3:35.59, Kyle Merber (Columbia, May 14, 2012)
3. 3:35.79, Abdi Bile (George Mason, June 6, 1987)
4. 3:35.84, Joe Falcon (Arkansas, April 16, 1988)
4. 3:35.84, Brian Hyde (William & Mary, May 13, 1995)

And after Merber’s story broke, we also received confirmation that Denis Fikes’ 1974 record wasn’t actually the record. That was simply a converted time from the mile, which isn’t permitted. After all, there is a 109-meter difference between the two. An ‘en route’ time in the mile is permitted, but that requires a timing system set up at both locations. That did not happen during Fikes’ 3:55 mile. Time for Penn to clean up its record book!

All-Time Ivy League Men’s 1,500m List
Click here for more

1. 3:35.59, Kyle Merber (Columbia, 2012)

2. 3:39.42, Joe Stilin (Princeton, 2012)

3. 3:39.90, Trevor Van Ackeren (Princeton, 2012)

4. 3:40.06, Greg Whiteley (Brown, 1989)

5. 3:40.17, Ben True (Dartmouth, 2007)

With the final conference championships and regional last-chance meets now complete, we can finally get a good essence of where the Ivy League athletes stand within the East Region.

To be eligible for East Regionals, the athlete needs to have their best performance(s) ranked within the top 48 of the region.  However, one can make it if there is room in the event should higher ranked athletes do not declare for it.  Beyond that, it is more up to chance on whether or not an athlete has qualified for the NCAA East Regional Prelimary Round that will be held later this month in at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. on May 24th thru 26th.  A schedule can be found here and more site details can be found here.

Below the cut is a listing of the Ivy Leaguers (and some alumni) who are currently ranked in the top 50 of their region (one alumnus is ranked in the West Region).  We have also included the current top performances in order to show how competitive the event will be at regionals.  Final qualifiers will be announced on Thursday at 1pm EST.

Even though there has been a large amount of buzz on Columbia’s Kyle Merber about his 3:35 1500m time and other fast times produced by other Princeton and Columbia runners at the same meet, none of these times are eligible for the Division 1 qualifying system as the meet was held outside of the qualifying time-frame.  Therefore, only the times that these Columbia and Princeton runners ran prior to 5/13 are eligible and listed on the rankings below.

We at HepsTrack wish all of the athletes listed (and just outside of these listings) good luck on gaining entry into Regionals.

Meanwhile, Harvard alumnus Daniel Chenoweth, now competing for Wisconsin, is ranked 17th in the 5000m (13:49.41) and 9th in the 10,000m (28:46.87).

We are going to let the stat heads argue this one out. Kyle Merber, the Columbia senior, ran what may have been an American College Record in the 1,500 meters tonight at the Swarthmore Last Chance in suburban Philadelphia.

Merber kicked past Saucony’s Nate Brannen — a 2008 Olympian for Canada — on the homestretch to stop the clock at 3:35.59, just .09 from the Olympic ‘A’ standard and with it creates a bit of controversy.

The issue is this, last July Matthew Centrowitz, running on the circuit in Paris, clocked a 3:34.69 which was decidedly beyond his collegiate season. Given that he did not return to Oregon to run, there is a question about whether that run counts. Track & Field News does not list it as the record. Instead it lists Sydney Maree of Villanova as the collegiate record holder (3:35.30) and Brian Hyde (William & Mary) and Joe Falcon (Arkansas) as the co-ACR holders (3:35.84). Merber also took care of Denis Fikes’ 38-year-old Heps record of 3:37.14. The things you learn after the fact. Even though Fikes’ record has long been listed in Penn’s record book, he never ran that time. That was a conversion of his Heps’ mile record and there was not an official ‘en route’ time. Merber was the first sub-3:40 Ivy Leaguer. Two more followed him in four seconds or so.

[Note that T&FN has weighed in, linking to this story with the headline "Kyle Merber's 3:35.59 Sets American College Record." We will not argue with the bible, which uses the NCAA Championships as a cut-off date.]

But Merber clearly could care less about splitting those hairs. “Thank you so much,” he wrote to his Facebook followers. “I can’t really express my thanks for the support tonight. I’m very much in shock. Best part is the whole Columbia miler crew walks away with PR’s tonight! And graduation tomorrow!”

For Merber, it’s a story that has come full circle in his final academic year in Morningside Heights.

Not long ago, the Half Hollow Hills graduate was facing a competitive running career that was in jeopardy. A unfortunate step on a run impacted a broken bottle, which tore through his shoe and into his foot.

Complications set in. Crutches were employed. Doubt crept in. But he was able to hit the trails again last summer and was finally running pain-free by winter (nearly a year-and-a-half after the injury).

Now everyone has to take a backseat to him — be it Lawi Lalang, Chris O’Hare, Erik Van Ingen, Paul Chelimo, Chris Derrick, Riley Masters or Miles Batty. Kyle Merber is the nation’s No. 1 1,500-meter runner right now.

Wow.

We heard from Merber overnight. Here’s how he explained it:

I wasn’t originally going to be in the fast heat, but we managed to pull a few worthwhile strings to wiggle in. The plan was to get the OT time by just sitting in line and getting dragged along.

I sat right on Liam [Boylan-Pett], and with 200m to go was surprisingly fresh so I made my move and for some reason never tired up. I crossed the finish line and was pretty excited to have won in what I assumed was going to be a 338. Coach Wood and Boylan-Pett ran on the track and were flipping out.

My jaw was on the ground when I heard the time, just full on shock. Things really clicked in practice this week, but I wasn’t expecting it go quite as well as it did. After last year, and the hiccups I had to deal with through out this year, nothing is more satisfying to have this experience with my teammates who are doing amazing things themselves. I still don’t really know what happened, but I am not going to complain.

Note: The equivalent mile time to a 3:35.5 is in the high 3:52s. Incredible.

The Last Chance meet also produced some other fast times that have improved some other athletes’ chances of making it into East Regionals in two weeks.  In Merber’s 1500m heat, Princeton’s Joe Stilin and Trevor Van Ackeren also broke 3:40 (3:39.42 and 3:39.90 respectively), resulting in the second- and third-fastest metric mile times in Ivy League history. Columbia’s Daniel Everett, Mark Feigen and Adam Behnke also set new season’s bests, with each of them running faster than 3:44 in the later heats.  In other events, Columbia’s Harry McFann won the 800m in a new season’s best of 1:48.14, which is also the fastest 800m time for an Ivy Leaguer this season. These fast times have shaken up the East Regional rankings for the middle distances and we hope to have updated listings before the end of today.

Female Rookies of the Week
Katie Woodford, Cornell (Fr., Oxford, N.Y.)
Zena Kolliesuah, Cornell (Fr., Pickerington, Ohio)
Cathy Liebowitz, Dartmouth (Fr., Plainfield, N.H.)
Woodford and Kolliesauh were both members of the winning 4×400-meter relay at the ECAC Championships on Sunday as Cornell won in 3:38.51. Only the Cameron Washington-led Big Red teams of the mid-2000s and the Sharay Hale-paced Columbia Lions in recent vintage have run faster among the League. Both rookies also ran on Cornell’s 46.06 4×100. Liebowitz became just the 10th League to throw the hammer 180 feet on Saturday, ending with a third-place 182-10. She had not thrown further than 160 heading into Heps, but had a break out performance there. This weekend all five of her legal throws went at least 171 feet.

Female Alum of the Week
Lindsey Scherf, Harvard (Scarsdale, N.Y.)
Scherf gave chase at the USATF 25k Championship in Grand Rapids, Mich., over the weekend, taking second to Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, who set an American record in 1:24:37. Scherf, who set the pace most of the way, posted the third-best time in U.S. history (1:25:12). For her effort, Scherf pocketed $4,500.

Male Athlete of the Week
Nico Weiler, Harvard (Jr., Stuttgart, Germany)
After no heighting at Outdoor Heps a week ago, Weiler didn’t elect to travel a less risky path at IC4As. In fact, he didn’t enter the pole vault competition until the bar was at 17-1 3/4. He cleared that, passed at 17-4 and then cleared a personal-best 17-7 3/4 on his first try. He then moved the bar to 18-1 to try to become the second Ivy Leaguer to clear 18, but he could not quite manage the milestone. Of course, it will be easy to say, how did you not select Conor McCullough of Princeton who won the hammer throw at IC4As by more than 26 feet? Don’t have a great answer other than Weiler PRed while McCullough missed that by eight inches. Stupid distinction, I know. But we will be hearing from McCullough again very soon.

Male Rookies of the Week
Stephen Mozia, Cornell (Fr., Hackensack, N.J.)
Eddie Owens, Princeton (Fr., Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Mozia finished second in two events — the shot put and discus throw — at the IC4A Championships over the weekend. His 59-9 3/4 shot was second to Monmouth’s Vincent Elardo (60-10 3/4) while his 174-7 discus was runner-up to Morgan State’s Emmanuel Stewart (176-6). Mozia’s discus throw was his season’s best. Meanwhile, Owens had a season-best and second-place showing as well, finishing the steeplechase in 8:56.39, about three seconds behind winner John Gregorek, a sophomore at Columbia.

Male Alum of the Week
Dan Chenoweth, Harvard (Geneseo, Ill.)
Chenoweth had a great career at Harvard, but never claimed a team championship at the conference level. But now he is a Big 10 team champion after his Wisconsin Badgers (121) edged Nebraska (115 1/2) and Indiana (115) for the team title in Madison, Wis. Chenoweth contributed to the cause with a fifth-place finish in the 10,000-meter run, finishing in 29:27.14, 32 seconds behind winner Zachary Mayhew of Indiana.

So when I saw that those two were already predicting the U.S. Track & Field Trials on Track & Field News, I paid attention. These guys study everything. And when they don’t know something, they have deep resources to find stuff out.

And I was happy to see that between them — Pfeifer overseeing the women and Johnson the men — they posted 15 former Ivy Leaguers in their top 10s, including four — Morgan Uceny (1500), Anna Pierce (1500), Delilah DiCrescenzo (steeplechase) and Sean Furey (javelin) — that they are projecting to make the U.S. Olympic team.

Six others — Ashley Higginson (steeple), Becky Christensen (high jump), Ben True (10k), Adam Nelson (shot), Conor McCullough (hammer) and Craig Kinsley (javelin) — are among the top five.

McCullough is not the only current collegian from the League in the top 10, as Princeton teammate Donn Cabral is ranked 10th in the steeplechase and Dartmouth sophomore Abbey D’Agostino sixth in the 5k.

The others earning rankings are Liz Costello (10k), Tora Harris (high jump) and Brian Chaput (javelin).

Believe it or not, the first fantasy track game ever began in the early 1950s. Brothers Bert & Cordner Nelson — who started Track & Field News — began a league that still runs today.

So anyway, Mary & I have jumped aboard to create a league and we encourage you to try to beat us. It is pretty easy to play. My captain for the Doha meet is David Rudisha and I have Allyson Felix and Jesse Williams on my squad among others.

If you are up for a game, join us — it’s free and I will figure something out for a winner — at http://iaafworldathleticsclub.org/FantasyAthletics/. Our HepsTrack league code is 111928.

Here is the Diamond League schedule. Jump aboard. And remember that the DL stops in New York’s Icahn Stadium on June 9.

UPDATE: I tweeted both Allyson Felix and Jesse Williams to let them know that they are on my team and I am expecting great results. Jesse replied with, “Great choice. Feeling great.” So as you make selections (and you better do it soon), keep that in mind.

Now that Outdoor Heps are complete, it is time to formally start looking at the post-season.  Many Ivy Leaguers have qualified for the ECAC/IC4A championships that will be held at Princeton this upcoming weekend.  Beyond that, it is more up to chance on whether or not an athlete has qualified for the NCAA East Regional Prelimary Round that will be held later this month in Jacksonville, Fla. on May 24th thru 26th.

To be eligible for East Regionals, the athlete needs to have their best performance(s) ranked within the top 48 of the region.  However, one can make it if there is room in the event should higher ranked athletes do not declare for it.  For example, Dartmouth’s Abbey D’Agostino and Princeton’s Donn Cabral are planning to focus solely on the 5,000 and steeplechase, respectively, even though they are ranked in other events.  Therefore, other athletes can be entered in those events that D’Agostino and Cabral elect not to compete in.

Below the cut is a listing of the Ivy Leaguers (and an alumnus) who are currently ranked in the top 50 of the region.  We have also included the current top performance in order to show how competitive the event will be at regionals.  Please note: these rankings will change after this weekend due to the ECAC/IC4A championships and some other conference meets.  Hepstrack will provide another listing before the final East Regional declarations are made.

Men’s 100m

Men’s 400m

Women’s 400m

Men’s 800m

Women’s 800m

Men’s 1,500m

Women’s 1,500m

Men’s 5,000m

Women’s 5,000m

Men’s 10,000m

Women’s 10,000m

Men’s 400m Hurdles

Women’s 400m Hurdles

Men’s Steeplechase

Women’s Steeplechase

Men’s 4x100m Relay

Women’s 4x400m Relay

Men’s High Jump

Women’s High Jump

Men’s Pole Vault

Women’s Pole Vault

Men’s Long Jump

Women’s Long Jump

Men’s Triple Jump

Women’s Triple Jump

Men’s Shot Put

Women’s Shot Put

Men’s Discus Throw

Women’s Discus Throw

Men’s Hammer Throw

Women’s Hammer Throw

Men’s Javelin Throw

Women’s Javelin Throw

Women’s Heptathlon

Men’s Decathlon