Clemson Qualifies Six for NCAA Indoor Championships
The Clemson Track & Field program has qualified six individuals for the upcoming 2020 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships, as announced on Wednesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). The program will have three men and three women compete across four different events.
Competition at the National Championships will take place on March 13-14 at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, N.M. Athletes qualified for the Championships by having their season’s best mark rank within the top-16 of all NCAA Division I competitors in their respective event.
Laurie Barton, Andrea Foster, and Rebekah Smith will be representing the women’s team, with Barton and Foster competing in the 800 meters, while Smith competes in the 60 meters. With their qualification, Barton and Foster become just the second duo in Clemson women’s history to qualify for the women’s 800 meters in the same year, with the first occurrence coming at the 2018 Championships.
Smith enters the Championships as the No. 3 athlete on Clemson’s all-time list for the women’s 60 meters, as Smith ran a monstrous personal best in the event, 7.23 seconds, at the LSU Twilight earlier this season. At the ACC Indoor Championships, Barton and Foster went 1-2 in the final of the women’s 800 meters, running the No. 4 and No. 5 times in Clemson history for the event, respectively.
On the men’s side, Devon Brooks, LaFranz Campbell, and Marcus Parker will all take to the track to represent the Tigers. Brooks and Campbell will compete in the men's 60 meter hurdles, making it just the second time Clemson has had multiple qualifiers in the event in program history. >
With the men’s program qualifying three athletes for this year’s edition of the Championships, it marks just the third time since 2013 that the team has sent three or more athletes to the Indoor National Championships.
Brooks and Campbell currently occupy the No. 4 and No. 5 spots on Clemson’s all-time list for the men’s 60-meter hurdles after running 7.71 and 7.72 seconds, respectively, during the season. Parker ran the program’s No. 3 mark in the men’s 200 meters at the 2020 Tiger Paw Invitational, sprinting to a time of 20.70 seconds. Parker has run the event on five different occasions this season and has been the top finisher in each occasion. >
Parker and Barton were Clemson’s lone event champions at last week’s 2020 ACC Indoor Championships, walking away with titles in the men’s 200 meters and women’s 800 meters, respectively.