Four Wolverines, 4×400 Relay Punch Tickets to NCAA Championships

Four Wolverines, 4×400 Relay Punch Tickets to NCAA Championships

Site: Jacksonville, Fla. (Hodges Stadium)

Event: NCAA East Preliminaries (Day 2 of 2)

U-M Result: No Team Scoring

Next U-M Event: Thursday, June 8 — at NCAA Outdoor Championships (Austin, Texas), 3:30 p.m. CDT

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Four individual athletes and one relay team qualified for the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Championships on Saturday (May 27) as the University of Michigan women’s track and field team closed out the NCAA East Preliminaries at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium.

Aasia Laurencin punched the first ticket to the NCAA Championships for the Wolverines in the 110-meter hurdles, setting yet another career-best as she took seventh in the quarterfinal with a time of 12.83. She now holds the third-best mark in program history, the best time in the Big Ten for 2023 and a top-ten mark in the NCAA for 2023.

The Big Ten Champion in the 400-meter hurdles, Savannah Sutherland claimed another victory on Saturday as she overtook Kentucky’s Masai Russell — a consistent NCAA leader in the event throughout the 2023 season — and won with a time of 56.06 to qualify for outdoor nationals for the first time in her career. Sutherland now holds the top three marks in program history, the ninth-best mark in the world, the top time in Canada and the third-best time in the NCAA for the ’23 season.

Ziyah Holman cemented her 400-meter dominance in the event quarterfinal, taking second overall with a time of 51.57 to secure her ticket to the outdoor championships. It will mark Holman’s third-consecutive outdoor championship appearance and sixth-consecutive NCAAs (indoor and outdoor combined).

In the 800 meters, Aurora Rynda secured her spot at the NCAA Championships with a second-place finish in 2:03.73. She won the second heat by out-running Virginia Tech’s Lindsey Butler. The performance earned her the fifth-best mark in program history and her third-consecutive trip to the outdoor championships.

In the final event of the day, the 4×400 relay squad earned a qualifying spot after a phenomenal comeback and ninth-place finish. Nikki Stephens, Sophie Isom, Rynda…