Saturday, March 10, 2012
Leesburg's Shericka Ward Advances to NCAA Finals of 60 Meter Hurdles, March 10, 2012
Villanova senior runs third career best of season in semifinal heats on Friday night
March 9, 2012
NAMPA, Idaho--Senior sprinter Shericka Ward (Leesburg, Fla.) ran a personal best time in the 60 meter hurdles for the third time this season and advanced to the finals of the event at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships on Friday night. Ward finished fifth in her preliminary heat and is one of eight athletes that advanced to Saturday night's final.
The preliminaries on Friday at Jackson Indoor Track included two heats of eight sprinters each. The winner of each heat plus the next six fastest times moved on to the finals and Ward advanced on time with a career-best mark of 8.16 in the first of the two heats. Five of the eight qualifiers for the finals came from her heat.
Ward has now run a personal best time in the 60 meter hurdles in consecutive races. Last weekend she won the ECAC title in the event and ran a time of 8.18 in the finals after leading the field through the preliminary and semifinal heats. Prior to last weekend's competition her top time had been 8.25 at the Penn State National earlier this year.
The finals of the 60 meter hurdles will be run at 8:45 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday night.
Also in competition for the Wildcats on Friday night was sophomore Emily Lipari (Greenvale, N.Y.), who ran in the preliminary heats of the Mile. She finished with a time of 4:46.66 in the first of two heats, placing seventh in her heat and 12th overall out of 16 runners.
Ward and Lipari both made their first individual appearances at the indoor NCAA Championships with their races this evening, although Lipari raced for Villanova on the team's national champion distance medley relay squad as a freshman last season. In their respective events Ward and Lipari were the only competitors from BIG EAST schools to have qualified for the national championships meet.
Shericka Ward Invited To NCAA Indoor Finals, March 8, 2012
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| FORMER LADY JACKETS TRACK AND FIELD STANDOUT AND CURRENT VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY STANDOUT SHERICKA WARD |
Ward, Demps
punch tickets for NCAA indoor finals
Published: Wednesday, March 07, 2012
FRANK JOLLEY | Staff Writer
frankjolley@dailycommercial.com
Shericka Ward has competed in relative obscurity throughout her college track-and-field career, while Jeff Demps has run on a much more visible stage.
That may be about to change for Ward as she joins Demps this weekend at college track's biggest indoor event.
Ward, a former Leesburg High School standout, and Demps, a former state champion from South Lake, will be running at the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships in Nampa, Idaho.
The two-meet begins Friday and is being hosted by Boise State University.
A senior sprinter at Villanova University in Philadelphia, Ward will compete in the women's 60-meter hurdles, while Demps will represent the University of Florida in defense of the men's 60-meter dash title he won last year in College Station, Texas.
Following a breakout effort at the Big East Championships in February, Ward used the momentum from that meet to set a record at the ECAC Championship in Boston. On the quick surface at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center, Ward blistered the field in a preliminary heat, stopping the clock in 8.23 seconds.
She posted an 8.28 time in the semifinals, before unleashing a record-setting performance on the field in the finals. Ward broke the meet record with an 8.18 in the title race. She obliterated the field, outracing her nearest competitor by nearly 2 /10ths of a second.
Ward's winning time surpassed the former meet record of 8.19 set in 2000 by former Villanova runner Charmaine Walker.
Based on her performance at the ECAC meet and her body of work as a senior, the NCAA announced late Monday that Ward had been accepted to run for the first time, as an individual in the NCAA title meet.
At the Big East Championships, Ward was the runner-up in the 60 hurdles and earned All Big East honors for the third consecutive year. She also came in third in the semifinals at the Penn State National in January, where her time of 8.25 was a personal best up until this past weekend.
Ward also scored a win at the NYC Gotham Cup during the regular season.
Demps, who was also a running back for the University of Florida football team and a member of the school's 2008 national championship team, recently announced he would focus on the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials instead of the upcoming NFL Draft and pursue a career in track.
The UF senior was one of 20 Gators to qualify for the indoor championships. He is the defending 60-meter champion, running a 6.53 in 2011.
Demps will enter Friday's championships with the fastest qualifying time in the country. He qualified with a 6.54, one-tenth second ahead of Auburn's Harry Adams.
The entire list of 20 qualifiers in the event are separated by .13 seconds.
Demps has earned four track and field national championships during his career at Florida -- 60-meter titles in 2010 and 2011, a 4x100 title in the 2010 outdoor championships, and 2010 100 meter title.
In addition to earning All-State honors in football during his junior and senior seasons at South Lake, Demps won the 100-meter state title as a senior in 2008 and clocked a 10.25 at the AAU Junior Olympics.
During the 2008 Olympic Trials, Demps set a national high school record with a 10.01 time in the 100. In addition, Demps also posted a personal-best time of 21.04 in the 200 meters during a meet in Knoxville, Tenn.
At Leesburg, Ward was the Class 3A state champion in 2008 in the 200 meter with a time of 25.24, and in the 100 hurdles, stopping the clock in 14.82.
She also competed in the state meet as a junior and a sophomore.
The indoor championships will be streamed live on ESPN3 from 7:30 to 11:45 p.m. on Friday and from 8 until 11:15 p.m. on Saturday. Cable channel ESPNU will air the championship on tape delay beginning at 7:30 p.m. March 18.
NCAA.com and broncosports.com will air what ESPN3 does not, beginning at noon on Friday and 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Ward Runs New Personal Best Time in 60 Meter Hurdles at Penn State National, March 8, 2012
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| Shericka Ward set a personal best in the 60 meter hurdles at the Penn State National for the second straight year. |
Jan. 28, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - At the Penn State National this weekend senior Shericka Ward (Leesburg, Fla.) established a new personal best time in the 60 meter hurdles and as a team Villanova registered 14 new postseason qualifying times on the Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track during a successful overall competition.
In the semifinals of the 60 meter hurdles on Friday night Ward crossed the finish line in a time of 8.25, a mark that was two-hundredths of a second faster than her time of 8.27 in the same meet last year. Ward was third out of 16 runners in the semifinal heats after her time of 8.33 in the preliminary heats put her fourth overall out of 42 competitors.
Ward also ran the 200 meters for the first time this season and came in second in the invitational section of the race with a time of 23.93. She was the runner-up out of eight runners in her section and had the top time of any affiliated runner, trailing only an unattached entry at the finish line. Freshman Varonica Johnson (Charlotte, N.C.) competed in the unseeded section of the 200 meters and tied for seventh place out of 38 runners with a time of 24.71 which qualified her for the BIG EAST and ECAC postseason meets.
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Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Former Yellow Jackets Standout Ward Headed to NCAA Indoor Championships This Weekend, March 6, 2012
Lipari and Ward Headed to NCAA Indoor Championships This Weekend
Monday, March 5, 2012
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